


It'll Be Alright

by luvliv2004



Category: One Direction (Band), Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF), Yungblud (Musician)
Genre: 2019 Era (Phandom), Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bakery Shop Owner Harry Styles, Bottom Dan Howell, Christmas, Christmas Party, Dan Howell Is Not A YouTuber, Dan Howell/Phil Lester Comfort, Data Analyst Phil Lester, Depressed Dan Howell, Dialogue Heavy, Dogs, Domestic Dan Howell/Phil Lester, Domestic Fluff, Emotional Hurt, Established Relationship, F/M, Family Planning, Harry Has Long Hair, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, London, M/M, Miscarriage, Mpreg, Mpreg Harry, Phil curses a bit, Pregnant Dan Howell, Pregnant Harry Styles, Radio Host Dan Howell, Sad Dan Howell, Some Humor, Top Phil Lester, gone wrong, i put this man through hell, medical fiction, newlywed phan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:55:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 53,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28077300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luvliv2004/pseuds/luvliv2004
Summary: Dan's life is forever changed when his plan to have a child at the same time as his best friend Harry goes awry. The community Dan finds in his newlywed husband Phil along with Harry and his partner Louis is what gets him through his roughest holiday yet.
Relationships: Ashley Frangipane | Halsey/Dominic Harrison | Yungblud, Dan Howell/Phil Lester, Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson
Comments: 1
Kudos: 10





	1. I

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Xmas Day](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24960871) by [luvliv2004](https://archiveofourown.org/users/luvliv2004/pseuds/luvliv2004). 



> Hello!  
> I will be posting one chapter a day until the 25th, and an epilogue will follow shortly thereafter. Subscribe to me if you want to be notified when I post them. The final story will come in around 50,000 words. There are no major TW for this chapter, only alcohol-related vomiting if that makes anyone uncomfortable. For each chapter, I am willing to add warnings for anything sensitive. But, yeah. It's Angst. Buckle up. I hope you supplement any sadness felt reading this by connecting with friends and loved ones and ample tamale making ;).
> 
> At the end, I will be sharing the link to a YouTube playlist with all the songs I listened to while writing this.
> 
> Don't be afraid to leave a kudos, share, or comment if you enjoyed this!
> 
> Chapter Word Count : 3669  
> Reading Time: 13 minutes, 19 seconds

10 July 2019

With Phil three-and-a-half hours away, Dan had the apartment to himself for the first time since their wedding. After the humble gathering on that last Saturday in June, the two were inseparable—as if they weren't already.

The last few months went by in a flash. To Dan, it had only been a few days since Phil had gotten down on one knee; but since that day nearly four weeks before, he and Phil had entertained many a celebration—namely their joint bachelor party and wedding reception—and even ventured off to New York City for a brief and steamy honeymoon. The day after their wedding, Phil managed to wake up before noon despite having gone to sleep at 3:00 am that morning. He was nearly certain that his mild hangover would have cost him his shot at the job he was interviewing for that day. Dan had always admired Phil’s ambition. His drive to make their relationship work despite how shy Dan had been in their first months together. His enthusiasm that propelled him so quickly through the IT department at the EEN.

“Philip,” the secretary called as he waited outside the meeting room, “they’re ready for you.”

Phil offered the secretary his gratitude as he passed by his desk and entered the room where two women had been waiting.

“Hello, Phil!” his superior greeted from inside her grey pantsuit.

“Hello to you, Ms. Joseph,” he shook her hand. “Philip Lester,” he introduced to the other, unfamiliar woman, “data analyst.”

“Shauna Oswald; executive director of the English Entertainment Network: UK,” she said.

The undigested bits of the left-over wedding cake Phil had scarfed down for breakfast churned in his stomach as he recognized the executive’s name.

“I’ve heard great things about you,” Shauna said.

The blood in Phil’s cheeks fought his capillaries to be seen through his translucent skin.

“Why don’t you have a seat?” Ms. Joseph said as she, Shauna, and Phil all found a chair around the oblong table. “So”—she opened the folder in front of her—“you’re interviewing for the IT director position, correct?”

“Correct!” Phil said, a little more excitedly than he would have liked. It was the Italian Meringue buttercream overcompensating for the energy all the lingering alcohol in his blood had stolen from him.

“That’s quite a big jump, isn’t it?”

“I like the challenge.”

Shauna grinned at the man she had first interviewed all those years before. She remembered Phil coming into her office with his flannel and his fringe. He was an adventurous lad then. Time and experience had made him the calculated risk-taker that he was now. “That’s good to hear.”

For twenty minutes solid, Ms. Joseph grilled Phil on the minutiae of data analytics, web development, and coding languages; all kindling to stoke the flames of Shauna’s affinity for Phil over the other applicants. As Ms. Joseph ran out of technical questions to ask, the hard part came. The part that Phil had spent weeks preparing for by reading books, asking his colleagues for advice, and watching countless videos on charisma and body language about. He felt like a Sim trying to level up in a skill.

“Now for the fun stuff. Tell us about yourself. What makes you think you’ll be a good leader?”

“Well”—Phil paused, not letting the distant ticking of the clock on the wall steal his train of thought—“I’m a good leader because I’m committed. I know that the goal of our online sect is to produce highly-digestible, personable content that informs about music, cinema, and pop culture news. I’ve already proven with my five year tenure at our company that I’m dedicated to our objective. As one of the more experienced analysts, I’ve been asked to undertake interns and conduct training for groups of about fifteen people. In those instances, I demonstrated patience while maintaining clear and reasonable standards for work. When one of my pupils didn’t meet the mark, I pulled them aside and offered them constructive criticism that didn’t compromise our good rapport and helped them improve.”

The whole time, Ms. Joseph and Shauna’s eyes were locked on Phil’s. They only looked away to take notes on the papers in their folders.

“What inspires you to take on this job?” Ms. Joseph asked.

Phil chuckled, realizing that “for the money,” wasn’t what they wanted to hear. He navigated through his nerves and pulled out the words that conveyed the truth a little more politely. “Recently,” he chuckled under his breath, “I married my husband, Dan. He’s a host on the EEN radio, actually.”

“Daniel Howell?” Shauna asked. “As in _Dan Until Dawn?_ ”

“Yes, Mrs. Oswald.”

“That’s amazing. Congratulations!” she offered.

“Thank you. So, as I was saying, I see my marriage as a new beginning; one that requires a higher standard of achievement. To me, that means being able to successfully perform this job. It means being able to provide for the person I love most.”

That morning before Phil left, Dan thought to tell Phil not to do the interview. He thought of a million excuses he could give Phil as to why it was more important to stay in bed with him, but he stopped himself after he realized how selfish it would have been. Sure, Phil would be away for a few hours when he should have been fooling around with Dan the way he had done the night before and helping him pack for their trip. But once Phil got back home, they would have shared a meal and a bed; and spent the following week together exploring NYC. Phil was allowed to have that little time to himself, pursuing the career he had always wanted. Who was Dan to complain about his ambitious husband? Or the new 0.25ct diamond encased in masculine gold on his finger that gave him a rug burn every time he removed it? Or the unfamiliar sight of the new surname he had taken in place of his own? God forbid he or Phil decides to trade in the apartment for a forever-home.

To make Dan’s adjustment issues worse, the minute they arrived home from New York, Phil’s phone rang with the intensity needed to snap Dan out of his honeymoon phase.

Phil let out a loud gasp less than a minute into the call, which set Dan on edge as he watched Phil pace around the TV room and lean against a doorframe. Ten minutes and about twenty five utterances of, “I’ll come,” or “I’ll be there,” or some other equivalent later, and Phil was off the phone.

Dan stared at him with his, “What’s wrong?” stare.

“Apparently my childhood home has been flooded,” Phil said. “They have no idea how, but all the pipes on the block burst and have been pumping water into all of the houses.”

Dan’s mouth fell open. “Holy shit!”

“My parents need me and my brother to come down and help them move all of their things out into their new flat. I’ll probably go up north for the day. Help them with the move.”

Dan nodded. “Of course.”

That following Wednesday, Dan sat back on their sofa, letting his eyes drift around the living room. They finally settled on the bottles of vodka resting beside the sink. Dan decided that it would have been too pathetic to drink alone, so with his lonely hand, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone to shoot Harry a text.

_Phil’s out of town. I’m bored._

Not one minute later, he received a response. Be right there.

Harry arrived with the setting of the sun, baring enough pierogi for the two of them.

“Polish food?” Dan asked as Harry served himself and Dan a hearty plate of the potato dumplings.

“Yup,” Harry said, “I have to support the little babushka at the street fair.”

Dan chuckled and dug into his dinner. “Thank you for this by the way. The food. Your company.”

“Anytime, Sunflower. Now, tell me about your trip.”

“It was so much fun! Have you ever been?”

Harry nodded.

“We went to the iconic spots: Central Park, Times Square, the Stonewall Inn. Phil upgraded our room without telling me, so we got to stay in this suite that had a jacuzzi tub.” Dan moaned. “Those things do wonders on the vertebrae.”

“That sounds relaxing.”

“It really was until I decided it was a good idea to actually start washing myself, and the jets fluffed up my soap so badly that I accidentally flooded the whole bathroom.” “No!” Harry laughed.

“Yep!” Dan said, raising a pierogi to his mouth to bite. “I freaked out, of course, running around the room, looking for towels, dripping wet with my arse out. It was ridiculous!” Dan plucked a paper towel from the roll on the table to wipe excess onion sauce off his lips. “How have things been back here?”

“Same old, same old: the shop, and Louis.” Harry grinned.

Once the men had finished their dinner, they brought the handle of vodka and a few mixers over to the couch, Harry with a bubbly air about him as he placed all the containers on the coffee table.

“You’re awfully chipper tonight,” Dan said, noticing the perpetual grin on Harry’s face as he fixed them their usual drinks; a smile that told Dan that Harry could barely contain a secret joy.

Harry relieved himself with a chuckle as he handed Dan his glass. “I have a feeling that Louis is going to propose.”

Dan gasped as a smile stole his face. “Really? How do you figure that?”

“We were having a talk about the future and how happy we are and how much happier we could be and houses and careers and blah blah blah. Then, I brought up the topic of children.”

“Harry! Don’t tell me you’re—”

Harry shook his head. “No. No. No. I’m not pregnant. But I told him that I would like to have children.”

“How does he feel about that?”

“It’s mutual. We’ve discussed it. We might start trying soon.”

“Soon? You’re so young.”

“I am young, but given my family’s history, I might be running out of time! Anyone who’s ever tried to have babies after age 29 needs fertility treatment, and then there’s this whole process with the NHS. We can’t afford it if they don’t cover us. On top of all that, Louis says that we’d have to at least be engaged before we have a baby.”

Dan laughed into his glass. “Your Louis can be quite the conservative, can’t he?” He impersonated Louis’ Yorkshire accent. “Oh no! We can’t go around having children out of wedlock.”

“Leave him alone!” Harry shoved Dan’s shoulder. “Isn’t that just how it goes?” he asked. “Fall in love. Get married. Have children?”

“That’s how they tell us caramels it should go.”

Harry shrugged, releasing another vulnerable smile. “Have you ever thought of it?”

“Thought of what?”

“Babies.”

“No!” Dan scoffed. “Not with any serious intention of having one. Why?”

“Ever since I found out I was caramel; the thought hasn’t left my mind.”

“Are you serious? You actually want to subject yourself to nine months of swelling, irritability, and worry for… for—”

“I want to subject myself to a lifetime of unconditional love that Louis and I will have created! All the pain that comes along is temporary. I’ve seen it happen. Ever since my sister had her son, she’s… well, she’s sleep deprived, sure, but she’s happy! Fulfilled.”

Dan had grown up alongside the siblings, and after Gemma left for university, Dan and Harry’s friendship became its strongest. As teenagers, the two would stay up late or sneak out, and as they laid beside each other in the comfort of one of their beds or under the South-Western night sky, they would bare their souls. Harry shared every last one of his hopes and dreams, even the insecurity he felt as the result of not yet knowing how to accomplish them. Dan offered Harry his deepest dread. The pain of inadequacy and the hopelessness that followed. Harry never once afforded Dan his own similar experience, because it was never his experience to share. He only ever extended his empathy, which always managed to comfort Dan.

Those feelings of dread, Dan just knew, didn’t run in the Styles family. So, of course Gemma was happy with her new baby. And of course, Harry would be happy with his once he had one. Dan, on the other hand, was nearly certain that giving birth would flare up his depression. He would have to struggle in front of Phil. It would be a nightmare.

“Think about it,” Dan said. “A baby will grow into a child who will one day be capable of comprehending their own death. Do you know how horrific that was for me to find out as a kid? These scientists did an experiment were they told a gorilla that he was going to die in sign language and he started hating himself! Is your fulfillment worth the price of someone else’s possible lifetime of unhappiness?”

Harry rolled his eyes. “Don’t be so self-righteous and dramatic! You can’t tell me that every single moment of your life has been absolutely miserable. If it were, you’d be dead.”

Dan stared at Harry with locked eyes that couldn’t admit their error. On reflection, apart from the constant teasing and occasional threats to his life by his poorly adjusted peers, his adolescence hadn’t been completely terrible. He had survived it, after all; all because of Harry, he quickly figured.

“You owe it to Phil to at least try to change your perspective on life,” Harry said. “I’d be really sad if I found out my spouse felt that way.”

Phil! Phil, and his beautiful light that could make the worst day feel like Christmas.

“Anyway,” Harry said, breaking Dan from his introspective gaze, “back to the topic at hand. I want to have a baby.”

“Okay,” Dan said. “Then, have a baby.”

“I want you to have a baby, too.”

Dan outright cackled. “Woah there, buddy! Slow down!”

“Think about it!” Harry beamed with enthusiasm. “I’ll have a little Larry, and you’ll have a little… Phan or Dil? Which name do you like better?”

Dan cringed. “They both sound disturbing.”

“But Danny!” Harry said, placing his, now, empty glass on the table before leaning in to hold Dan’s hands. “I love you so much.”

“And I love you.” Dan said as he stared into Harry’s eyes. He found the warmest, most infectious optimism in his friend’s irises.

“I want my kid to grow up alongside someone else so they can have what we have!”

Dan couldn’t spoil Harry’s joy with a one-liner like he would have done any other day. As opposed to the idea as he was, he couldn’t deny the points Harry had made about his pessimism. Maybe his philosophy had been wrong this whole time. “I don’t know, babe,” Dan said. “I don’t know.”

Their little spat led Harry to drink more than he normally would have on one of their nights in. By the time Phil called to say goodnight at around 10 o’clock, Harry could barely hold his head up without leaning back on the sofa.

“Hello!” Dan squealed into his phone.

“Hi, baby,” Phil said. “How was your day?”

“I got bored without you, so I called Harry over. He’s been keeping me company.”

“Hello, Philip!” Harry yelled, so Phil could hear him.

“Hey, Hare!” Phil chuckled.

“He brought me puh-rogis,” Dan informed.

“Pyeh-ro-gi,” Harry corrected as he clamped a hand over his eyes to protect himself from the room’s light.

“My bad. Piero— Per— However the fuck you say it!” Dan propelled a laugh through the phone.

“Have you been drinking?” Phil asked.

Dan turned to Harry; face already flushed from the alcohol. “Maybe…” he sang, trying to be coy before the silence on Phil’s end pulled from Dan his confession. “Yeah. Harry and I are pissed. “Put me on speaker,” Phil requested, and after Dan confirmed that they could both hear him, Phil called for Harry. “Is Louis going to be able to pick you up tonight. I’d hate for you to get into a taxi by yourself.”

Harry shook his head. “No, Louis’ asleep.”

“You know what that means,” Dan said. “Sleepover!”

Harry whooped with joy.

Phil’s crackly chuckle punctuated Harry’s racket. “Well, then. I was gonna tell you about my day, but there’s no point if I’ll just have to repeat myself in the morning. I’ll let you guys get to sleep.” “No! No!” Dan pleaded. “Tell me about what happened with the house. Is everything okay?”

“Yeah. The water’s been drained, but the house is still uninhabitable. Yesterday, they rented a flat in town, so they’ll be living there for the time being.”

Dan nodded. “When do you think you’ll be coming home?”

“Tomorrow for sure.”

“Great.” Dan yawned, triggering Harry to yawn. “Well, if that’s all—”

“It’s not all,” Phil interrupted. “At about midday, I got a call from work. I got the job!”

“No way!” Dan said.

“Yes way. This is happening.”

“Congratulations!”

“And a happy New Year,” Harry sang, “and many more!”

After they said their goodbyes and hung-up, Dan turned to Harry who had been staring at the ceiling, sleepy eyes seeming to slide down his face.

“Nope!” he said as he stood from the sofa and grabbed Harry by the arms. He couldn’t have Harry falling asleep in the living room. He didn’t have the upper body strength to carry him over to his bed.

Harry grumbled incoherently once he was upright. He followed Dan’s pull that led him down the hallway to his room. The instant he spotted the toilet through the opened bathroom door, everything he had ate or drank that night came climbing back up his throat, stinging all the way from his esophagus to his nasal passage. “Shit!” Harry said with a dry heave.

Within seconds, Dan was able to rush Harry’s mouth over the toilet bowl to catch his sick. “Let it out, babe,” he said as he held onto the lot of Harry’s shoulder-length hair and rubbed gentle circles below his neck. Dan had to try extra hard not to laugh at how familiar the task had become. Harry could never hold his liquor; not the first time he drank at the secret, queer prom he and Dan had snuck off to in Watford, nor at Louis’ mum’s wedding half a decade later.

A minute had passed, and Harry had vomited up about a fifth of fluids before he came up for air. He stared up at Dan, who had been kneeling beside him on the floor, involuntary tears streaming down his cheeks. “Look what you've done to me,” Harry griped.

“Whatever,” Dan said before he let go of Harry’s hair, and stood before the sink. He reached for a disposable paper cup and filled it with water from the tap. “Here, rinse yourself.” He handed Harry the water.

After the two cleaned themselves up as much as their current condition allowed, they reached Dan’s bed on legs that wobbled more with each step. After Harry pulled the duvet open to slip inside the bed, he found his hands gravitate toward the bottom of his shirt to remove it. Halfway up his torso, he stopped himself, uttering a curse under his breath.

“What?” Dan asked as he took his usual spot under the covers.

“I can’t be naked around you anymore. You’re married!” Harry laughed.

Dan shook his head. “Way to create unnecessary tension.” He patted the bed beside himself. “You’re my brother. Do what you want.”

With that, Harry flung his constricting, floral, button-down over his head and laid beside Dan.

“Goodnight, Love,” Harry said as he wrestled with the pillow under himself and closed his eyes.

“Night,” Dan said, turning to his back and resting his hand under his head.

The ideas tumbling around in Dan’s mind like a pair of trainers in a washing machine banged against his skull and prevented him from rest. He couldn’t stop thinking about Harry telling him that he and Phil should have a baby.

Were they both physically capable of doing it? Sure. Were they both mentally capable of doing it? Dan knew Phil was. He just wasn’t too keen on himself.

Dan and Phil would always be able to provide for children, especially when Phil’s six-figure promotion became official. Dan knew from experiencing the best of Phil that Phil was capable of putting the needs of others before his own. He was unsure of whether he could have that attitude himself. It wasn’t like he could take a “mental health day” off from parenting like he could from radio. You can’t pass a child off to a friend like they’re a tangled pair of earbuds.

Why worry about these issues if you’re certain you don’t want it, Dan asked himself. Maybe it was his drunken mind oversimplifying things, but in that moment, Dan came to the conclusion that, maybe, he did want it.

He didn’t know if he could do it, but he knew that the only way to find out if he could was to try. Dan had suggested and Phil had agreed to crazier things; like the eco-friendly, earthworm compost bin they bought months back, and them moving in together in the first place. Phil wouldn’t fault him for bringing up the topic. In fact, before they were married, Phil would often speak about wanting kids, but never being able to on his own.

Dan let the calm that came as the result of his epiphany sooth him as he turned to his side, leaned over Harry, and planted a silent kiss on his forehead. Once his head met his pillow, he closed his eyes and filled his mind with visions of his and Phil’s plump, pink babies that floated on clouds and—


	2. II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Word Count: 4096  
> Reading Time: 15 minutes

11 June 2019 

“What’s all this about?” Phil asked as he dropped his travel bag at his feet. On the kitchen table, there had been a straw basket lined with a cloth Phil suspected was one of his old plaid shirts. Inside the basket were plastic containers of finger foods: crackers, jams, cold cuts, grapes, citrus, and bread. 

“Nothing,” Dan said as he kissed Phil’s lips and threw his arms around the back of his neck. “I just thought you’d like to have a late lunch. Maybe we could go to the park and spend some time together before we go back to work.”

Phil nodded, showing his confused, goofy smile. “I’d love that, but outside?” he asked before he held the back of his hand to Dan’s forehead. “Are you running a temperature? Where’s my Daniel and what have you done with him?”

They both laughed.

“Oh, stop it! Let’s go.”

After a quick stop in their room which Phil used to change out of the only pair of socks he had brought with him on his trip, the two walked down the street en route to the nearest park. After the fifteen-minute-long walk to Hyde Park, they found a spot on the grassy field around Round Pond. Thankfully, Phil had thought to bring a throw-blanket for them to sit on to protect their clothes from the grass.

Dan silently scolded himself for not realizing how heavy the basket had been before they left the apartment. Even though he knew they could easily finish everything he had brought, he would have packed less if he knew how hard it was to carry. He wouldn’t dare complain to Phil or ask him to take a turn with the 10 kilos of food, plastic, silver wear, china, and water.

Every duck in the area ran as fast as their legs would take them when Dan dropped the basket beside where Phil had laid out their blanket. Of course, it had to be an unusually warm 30 degrees outside, and while Phil was prepared, wearing his shorts, Dan had still been sporting the full-length trousers he needed to protect himself from the morning cold. 

By the grace of God, the fabric of the legs was elastic enough to roll up, and as he fashioned himself a pair of capris, Phil unpacked their meal. Dan helped once he finished ventilating himself, and in no time the two were grazing on the spread.

“How was your ride home?” Dan asked as he peeled himself a tangerine. He had to make up for the conversation time he wasted as he caught his breath their entire walk over.

“The train was fine,” Phil said. “I took the Switch with me, so that kept me entertained.”

“I noticed! That was not cool, man. We’re married now, and husbands ask before they steal the Switch.”

Phil chuckled. “Was this whole outing all a ruse to get me to confess?”

Dan shook his head. “Tell me more about what you did. Did they ever find the cause of the flood?”

“It was a classic case of bad pipes. One upstairs and another in the basement burst. My parents were away when it happened, and by the time they got back, the basement was completely flooded, and the ceiling was leaking in the kitchen. We had to move all of their things that weren't damaged to their new, temporary flat. And they couldn't get a plumber to assess the bursts, so there's no telling how long they'll be there for.”

“That’s terrible!”

“Yeah,” Phil sighed, no longer wanting to think about all of the sentimental belongings he and his family had lost to the water. “What time did Harry leave?”

“Around eleven this morning. We were fucked up last night! It was crazy.”

“Did you bust out the karaoke machine?”

“No, but it took Harry a good five minutes of trying to ring Louis to figure out that the calls weren’t going through because he kept typing Louis’ number into his calculator app.”

Phil doubled over in laughter. “Oh!” Phil said as he shifted in his seat to lean in toward Dan. "Do you remember that girl you met the last time you came with me to visit my family?”

“The one you said read your tarot cards every time you babysat her?”

Phil nodded. “She’s all grown up, and coincidentally, she was in the neighborhood visiting for summer break. We caught up. Apparently, a long time ago, she moved to France to study architecture.”

“Good for her!”

“I think so. At least she’s focusing on something she’s good at… unlike telling the future. I always thought the whole palm-reading, tarot card business was fun and entertaining, but I got confused every time she’d read my fortune and the Empress card would come up without fail.”

“The Empress? What does that mean?” Dan asked.

“Something about fertility and maternity.” Phil chuckled to himself as he rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I let this ten-year-old convince me that I was caramel.”

“Goodness.”

“I feel like I should have known better.”

“Trust me,” Dan said, “if you were a caramel, you would have known.”

“I was barely fifteen. The—uh”—Phil flopped his hands and wagged his fingers to compensate for the vocabulary he didn’t know—"changes,” he finally settled on, “don’t even start until you’re sixteen. Right?”

“Correct,” Dan said with a nod. “And do you, by chance, know what those changes are?”

Phil shook his head with a frown. “I’m sorry! Enlighten me. How do you actually know you’re a caramel? I mean besides the monthly…”

Dan turned a bright red.

“Like, how did you first find out? How does that process work? That’s what I mean to ask.”

Dan took a second to remember the proper information the doctors had told him and his family. “So, we’re called caramels as a shortened version of ‘carrying male,’ which is kinda cheesy, if you ask me, but it’s definitely better than what the Americans call us. Anyway, the reason we can carry is because we were born with this tiny, tiny organ that doesn’t begin growing until puberty. It reaches full size between ages sixteen and eighteen. And when it starts growing, it fucking hurts!” Dan said.

Phil laughed.

“Oh, you’re giggling now, but just imagine the worst, ripping pressure in your stomach.”

“Okay,” Phil said. “I’m imagining it.”

“Now, imagine thinking you’re constipated and being too embarrassed to tell your parents. Now, imagine bleeding a month later out of a place where blood should not come out.”

“That must have been terrible.”

“It kinda was. Basically, we have a mutation in the pituitary gland that allows it to produce three forms of testosterone: the regular kind, and two altered forms that our body's respond to in the same way they would estrogen and progesterone, respectively. Because they are all testosterone, they can exist simultaneously without much interaction. It's nuts. Naturally, all of these hormones make us more prone to illness; blood clots, heart issues, prostate enlargement, endometrial cancer. That's why my doctor is so adamant that I get my check-up every year."

Phil nodded. "That makes sense." 

"And then there are the annoying bits. The bleeding. The mood-swings. The random swelling and unexplained weight-gain. The occasional acne flare-up. Like come on! I'm twenty-eight for fuck's sake."

The explanations of Dan's symptoms were starting to make sense to Phil. All of these ailments, apart from Dan's cycles, Phil would have normally blamed on Dan's nocturnal sleep schedule or his, often, poor eating habits. Realizing that these aches weren't the result of his choices, rather the conditions for his mere existence made Phil more sympathetic to his husband.

"Carrying males are about as common as people with green eyes," Dan continued, "and we almost always have either auxiliary nipples or lopsided dimples.” Dan smiled, flexing the deformed muscle in his left cheek.

“That’s precious,” Phil said before he leaned in closer to kiss Dan’s dimple. When he pulled away, he laid flat on their blanket and stared up at the clouds above him. The sun had nearly blinded him, so he gave up on cloud-watching and closed his eyes, letting the sounds of the park compensate for the lack of visual stimulation.

Dan had spent the moments of silence between them contemplating whether to bring up his wants then and there. The topic would have fit naturally with their train of discussion, but as Phil laid on his back, so peaceful and serene, Dan decided against it, not wanting to excite Phil with such a life-changing proposition. “God!” Dan groaned instead, leaning back on his wrists. “I am not looking forward to losing my nights again.”

“Yeah, that’s going to suck.”

Dan’s schedule was usually booked from 4:00pm - 12:00am every weekday. In that time, he would prepare for and host his radio show, “Dan Until Dawn.” From 6:00pm - 10:00pm, Dan played the world’s top alternative and indie hits, MC’d interactive games with live callers, and told quick and humorous stories about his life between songs. Dan prided himself on his diverse music selection, and his loyal listeners applauded him for it. It was his dream job until Dan met Phil, and he barely had time to interact with him given their conflicting schedules. To make up for the time they were losing apart from each other, Phil sometimes walked across the EEN facility at the end of his shift, and snuck into the production room to be with Dan. The paid time off the two had taken for their wedding and honeymoon allowed them the evening time together that their relationship lacked.

“Strike up a meeting with your boss,” Phil suggested. “Pitch them that show you were telling me about in New York.”

Dan nodded, knowing that that was the only solution to their problem. Beyond that, Phil’s encouragement made Dan feel safe; like he could say anything without the fear of repercussions. “Last night,” he began, “I had this dream where we were in a house on the countryside, and it was you, me, and three kids. It was us five and we were sitting down, eating dinner, and talking about how our days were.”

“Three kids?” Phil asked with genuine shock in his brow.

“Yup. Three of them. I was terrified; absolutely terrified I’d fuck them up somehow, but when I woke up and waited for you to come home, I couldn’t help but ask myself: What if it were real?”

“What if it were real?” Phil asked, sans the smile Dan was expecting.

“You don’t like the idea? I thought you would have been more excited by my change of heart!”

“I love the idea! It’s just shocking how it’s come out of nowhere. You’re sure you want this? You don’t want to start off with something smaller, like a dog?”

“I didn’t dream about dogs, Phil. I dreamt about human children. I don’t know, maybe it’s our heteronormative society or maybe it’s the caramel in me telling me that it would be a really good idea to have a baby with you. I know what I’m feeling, and I know it’s real.”

“So, how do you want to go about this?” Phil asked.

Dan scoffed. “It was hard enough accepting that I want kids! Now I’m supposed to have a plan?”

“Yeah. People who admit that they want children usually have a plan.” The instant those words came from Phil’s mouth, Dan’s face sunk with worry. “We’ll talk this out slowly,” Phil said to remedy. “Do you have a timeline of when you’d like to get pregnant?”

Dan shook his head. “Part of me wouldn’t be mad if we went home right now and started trying. Another part of me says that an Aries baby would be a nightmare.”

Phil chuckled, fearing that he wasn't going to get any serious answers out of Dan.

“I don’t know!” Dan said, curtailing his laughter with a saccharine smile as he reached out into the grass and ripped a blade from the ground to fiddle with. “I’ve been in a really good headspace lately with everything that’s happening—the wedding, your promotion—and I want to do everything I can to stretch out that happiness.” 

Dan dreaded the day their marriage became commonplace. He knew it would; the same way his job was starting to be. All the change happening around Dan became exciting at the cost of his comfort. Phil, Harry, and his family were now the only parts of Dan’s life that brought him inner-peace. The least he could do was try to take control of the change by provoking it himself.  
Phil sighed. “That’s a beautiful sentiment. But you are absolutely sure you’re ready for it?”

“For the second time, yes! I’m ready for it.”

“Okay. I just have to ask. Some days I can taste that you haven’t brushed your teeth.”

“You know why that is,” Dan snapped, “and if it’s that much of a bother to you, I’ll go back to therapy before we have a kid.”

Phil leaned over to rub Dan’s back to sooth the nerve that he had struck. “You’re doing so well without it,” Phil said. “I don’t mean to take away from the progress you’ve made. I can just see this getting hard for you if you don’t have the smoothest pregnancy humanly possible.”

Dan nodded gratefully. “I’ve got my issues,” he admitted, “but I couldn’t hate my own child the way I’ve hated myself. I know that their life is partially my responsibility, and it would kill me to screw things up for them. I don’t take this idea lightly at all.”

“Okay then,” Phil said. “We’ll start trying.”

The largest grin overtook Dan’s face as he brought Phil into his arms, nuzzling into the side of his neck. Phil returned the embrace, tracing his hands along Dan’s spine. With his fingertips, he tried to reinfuse the confidence his questions had stolen from Dan. He traced circles into the flesh of his back and his hips until his finger blindly snagged on the waistband of Dan’s underwear. “Oh, sorry.” Phil said as he leaned over to see the fabric he had displaced. He was met by the sight of Dan’s black, lacy underwear. “O-Oh, these!” Phil sputtered.

Phil’s face warmed up against Dan’s skin. 

“You weren’t lying. You are ready!”

Coquettish smile in tow, Dan pulled away. “What do you say we save all this for later, and uh, go back home so we can-”

At the sound of the offer, Phil reached for their food, closing containers and stacking dirty plates back into their basket at a comical speed. Dan helped him pack up, and forty seconds later, they were walking the path to leave the park. 

The instant they stepped inside the apartment, Phil took off his shoes. He whooped and clapped the entire way back to their bedroom only to find that Dan hadn’t followed him in. “Dan?” he called as he took a seat on the edge of their bed and began undressing.

“Yeah?” He answered from the other side of the apartment.

“I’m ready!”

“Good for you. I’ve gotta wash these dishes.”

“Are you sure you need to do that right this second?”

Dan scoffed. “This is our wedding china! My parents spent a fort—” 

“Okay, okay!” Phil said to end Dan’s squawking. “Take your time.”

Before he started on the dishes, Dan removed his ring and placed it on the ledge above the sink. As he got to work on the porcelain stained with the remnants of food, he thought of Phil waiting for him on their bed, curled up on his side and inconspicuously browsing the internet to pass the time. Phil’s composure turned Dan on. The way he never let him know that he wanted sex until Dan propositioned him. The satisfaction of being right in his suspicions that Phil wanted intimacy was intoxicating; even more so when Dan remembered that Phil’s desire was exclusive to him. 

It took Dan three minutes to finish cleaning and drying the china, after which, he went into the bathroom and rinsed himself of his summer sweat. He too stripped down to his underwear, and decorated himself with accoutrements before he headed for Phil.

“There he is!” Phil said as he saw Dan’s silhouette on the floor outside their room. When he became visible, Phil’s brain short circuited, and he forgot to exhale.

Dan stood against the doorframe with his arms crossed. Nearly every inch of his body had been covered in the gifts he had received at their wedding. The pearl, stud earrings from Phil’s mum, the aquatic-scented cologne from Chris Kendall, and the matching lace robe from Harry. He was regal; commanding Phil’s attention and threatening to punish him if he missed even a second of his opulence. Phil didn’t mind his orders. He wouldn’t let Dan out of his sight if it meant he had to follow him out of the room.

“Ready?” Dan asked, coming closer to the bed and sitting beside Phil.

Phil nodded as he pulled out his phone and opened his music. He pressed play, and a barrage of distant-sounding voices erupted from the speaker on their nightstand, effectively killing the beautiful tension Dan had built.

“What the fuck is that?” Dan asked, wheezing with laughter at Phil’s choice of musical accompaniment.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry.” Phil scrambled to find a more appropriate track. “It’s shopping centre talking noises. I use it to focus when I’m crunching numbers and making presentations at work.”

Dan chuckled, and scooted towards his husband. He placed his hand at the back of Phil’s neck, rubbing the muscles that were riddled with knots he had acquired from leaning over a computer. 

“Ambient space or midnight creek?” Phil asked.

“Take us to space,” Dan said. He brought his mouth to the side of Phil’s neck and pressed tender kisses into his skin.

After Phil started playing the new down-tempo music and set his phone on the side table, he turned his attention to Dan. He lined the side of Dan’s face with the back of his hand before he met Dan’s lips with his own. They kissed, opening and closing the distance between them to catch their breath and brushing noses every time they readjusted themselves. Phil’s lips relaxed a few minutes in, cueing Dan to take control for a while. Dan came even closer, wrapping his arm around Phil’s shoulder as his other hand drifted lower. He clasped his hand over Phil’s boxers, clutching his penis and kissing him.

“I love you,” Dan said.

Phil threw his head back at the feeling of Dan’s hand pulsing. “I love you more,” he groaned. He felt himself getting hard. He loved letting Dan know that he could do that to him. “Oh, god!” 

Dan took his hand off of Phil. “No you don’t! Not yet. We actually need it this time.”

Phil chuckled in frustration. “You’re right. Let’s swap."

Dan laid back with a smile. “Go ahead,” he said.

Seconds later, Phil suspended himself over Dan on his knees. He caught the sides of Dan’s underwear on hooked fingers and slid then down his legs. “These are lovely, but they need to go.” Between Dan’s legs rested the penis Phil had yet to excite. To start the job, Phil lowered himself over Dan, wrapping his arms under Dan’s shoulders. Dan pulled Phil close, letting Phil know that was exactly what he wanted him to do. For a while, they continued kissing: Phil pulling his head away every so often, and Dan leaning forward to chase his lips. When Phil felt Dan’s hardness push against his bottom ribs, he knew it was time for the real work to begin. 

“Warming or regular?” Phil asked as he released Dan and kneeled over him on the bed. 

“Warming,” Dan said, letting his eyebrows raise in excitement. 

With that, Phil reached over to their bedside table where the couple kept their toys and other supplies like their lubricants; the warming, the regular, and the flavoured, all beside the box of condoms they were no longer using. After tipping out a palmful of lube from the orange bottle onto his hand, Phil lathered himself, liberally applying the liquid to ensure that Dan was comfortable. He even dripped a few drops down between Dan’s legs to let him feel the tingling sensation the lubricant had promised.

“You’re ready?” Phil asked.

“Phil, I swear to god. If you don’t penetrate me right now—”

“Okay! Okay! There’s no need to be vulgar. This just isn’t the sort of thing you can instantly take back. Once it’s happening, it’s happening.”

Dan would be lying to himself if he said the thought didn’t terrify him. He’d be lying to Phil if he said he didn’t trust that Phil’s support could get him through anything. “Let it happen,” Dan said. Without a moment’s hesitation, Phil resumed his place at Dan’s end and held the tip of his erection against Dan’s rim. Dan wrapped his legs around Phil’s waist to pull him in deeper, nearly sealing the deal.

“Woah!” Phil looked down at Dan, still wincing from the pain he had brought upon himself. “Why don’t we slow down?” Phil asked.

Dan nodded, grabbing Phil’s right hand and pressing it up to his lips. “You’re right. I’m getting ahead of myself.”

“It’s okay,” Phil said as he began rocking into Dan. “You’re okay.”

“I’m okay,” Dan assured, reaching up to pull Phil’s head down to kiss.

“You’re so beautiful.” Phil told Dan as he moved from his mouth to his jaw to his neck and finally settled on his collar bones.

“I love you, Phil Lester,” Dan said, through the humming moan he tried to stifle in the back of his throat. Phil was rocking him all right. “I have never loved a human being as much as you.”

The sensation was surreal at the epicenter of their connection. The wetness and the warmth. The hypnotic repetition. The soft, pleasurable hissing that came from Dan. The wave of oxytocin that carried the two out to sea. It was enough to make them forget they were trying for a baby.

“You feel so good,” Phil said, begging to ascend the ladder up to a climax.

“You too,” Dan breathed, feeling the effects of Phil’s convulsing hips moments before he came inside of Dan.

“There you go!” Phil cheered as he collapsed. He landed on Dan’s chest, sliding around on the slick of sweat they had both contributed to.

For a few seconds, Dan let Phil catch his breath as he enveloped Phil in his arms and combed through his hair. “Are you good?” Dan asked once Phil’s breathing returned to normal. 

“I’m amazing,” Phil said.

“Alright, great. Can you please get off my chest? You’re kinda squashing my nips.”

Phil finished Dan off with oral before they called it a night. They showered together before settling down on the sofa. Dan laid his head on Phil’s lap and dangled his legs over the edge of the arm rest, staring up at the ceiling as Phil channel surfed on the television.

“So this is how our honeymoon phase ends.” Dan said.

“We’ve still got three days before we have to go back to work,” Phil reminded.

“Sure, but we’ve already done all the fun stuff. Now, it’s over.”

“We can keep trying.”

“Trying.” Dan repeated with a laugh. “Do you think it worked?”

Phil shrugged and let his hand form a fist against Dan’s stomach. He knocked a few times, bringing his ear close. “Doesn’t sound hollow to me.”

Dan chuckled. “I’m not a melon! Seriously! Do you think it worked?”

“I don’t know,” Phil said, opening his hand and using it to massage the tender flesh between Dan’s hipbones. “We did everything right, didn’t we? Our timing seems on point, right? You had a period right before New York, and that was a couple weeks ago. It seems like prime time to me.”

Dan nodded.

“You can take a home test in a few weeks, and we’ll find out for sure.”

“You’re so smart.”

“I do my research,” Phil said. “I plan ahead.”

“At least one of us does.” Dan sighed. “What happens when I wake up in a few weeks from today and decide that this was a mistake? Did you plan for that?”

Phil appreciated that Dan was honest enough to say, “when,” instead of, “if.” They both knew that Dan was indecisive. He rarely ever shared his thought process this freely for fear that any change to his ideas would result in judgment. The fact that Dan felt comfortable enough to be that vulnerable around him cemented Phil’s belief that he was Dan’s soulmate.

“No,” Phil said. “That’s not something I get to plan. If you find out that you’re pregnant, and you wait it out only to decide that it’s not the right time, that’s on you; and I will support whatever you choose to do.” 

Phil decided to spare Dan the “but I would be gutted if I didn’t have the opportunity to raise that child.” That wasn’t what Dan needed to hear. As true as those feelings were, that was pressure that Dan didn't need.

“Yeah, yeah,” Dan said. “I wouldn’t have married you if I didn’t know you would have said those exact words. But, I know you.”

“Well, I suggest you start getting to know yourself,” Phil said as he leaned over and kissed Dan’s forehead.


	3. III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Word Count: 4505  
> Reading Time: 16 minutes 23 seconds

28 July 2019

“Phil!” Dan called from the other side of the aisle.

“Wha-“ Phil muttered, too preoccupied with the blue, yellow, and red boxes of cereal resting on the shelves before him to form whole words.

“Do you want wheat or white bread?” Dan asked, holding up the two loaves for Phil to see.

“Sure.” Phil nodded as he reached for a box of Crunchy Nut to inspect.

Dan came closer to Phil. “Wheat or white bread?”

“Oh. Uh… Wheat?”

Dan nodded as he tossed the bag of wheat bread into their trolley and headed in the opposite direction to return the unwanted loaf to its display. In the few moments Dan had apart from Phil, he didn’t have to maintain the lively guise that would be the cause of his first wrinkle; with his eyebrows raised to give the illusion of energy and the corners of his lips pulled to the brink of a smile. Now that he was away for a minute, he could relax. His face could relax, at least.

Between Dan’s ears brewed one of the greatest panics of his life. He was grateful that he and Phil had started their grocery shopping in the safety of the produce section. What scared him was the thought that as they went further west, produce became grains. Grains became frozen foods. Frozen foods became cleaning supplies. Cleaning supplies became hygiene. And hygiene became family-planning.

The family-planning shelves had been home to an array of Dan and Phil’s favourite condoms, jellies, and even miniature vibrators—when they were desperate. Among those staples hid the pregnancy tests that Dan never thought he would need to buy; let alone plan to buy as he and Phil had done that day.

He wished he and Phil got into the habit of dividing and conquering the shopping responsibilities. If that was the case, Dan wouldn’t hesitate to volunteer himself to find everything on their list in aisles fifteen through thirty by himself. If they had agreed to that, the store would have been “sold out” of the tests.

It wasn’t urgent that Dan buy and take a test that day. In fact, according to WebMD, taking a test that early on might result in a false negative. Maybe he could distract Phil and get him to forget about the three-week anniversary of their unprotected sex approaching that Thursday. After Thursday, Dan knew his life would never be the same. Thursday would mark the beginning of a bi-weekly testing cycle that the couple only planned to stop when Dan fell pregnant. That thought alone was enough to reform the pit in Dan’s stomach; the visible, nauseating, growing pit in his stomach that made his skin itch.

_Could I be? No! It’s just a placebo. I want it so bad that I’ve convinced myself it’s happening against all reason._

Dan left those irrational thoughts behind as he returned to Phil in the cereal section, still mesmerized by the carboard boxes.

“These cereal companies are really stepping it up with their designs,” Phil said as he heard Dan’s footsteps approaching. “I mean, from a graphic design standpoint, they’re immaculate! Great use of color, dynamic lettering on the logos, and likable mascots. It’s like they’re designing the covers of a superhero comic or something.”

Dan huffed out a laugh as he commandeered the trolley and pushed it up the row. Phil followed behind him, almost chasing after Dan’s quick strides.

“Is everything okay?” Phil asked once he caught up.

“He knows,” Dan told himself.

“Yeah,” Dan said, conjuring up the guise he had left in the bread aisle. “I’m good.”

“Great.” Phil took the trolley back from Dan. “What are we cooking for your mum tomorrow?”

Dan shrugged. “We could just… order us all pizza.”

“Absolutely not!” Phil said. “Your mum deserves better than take-away.”

“But does she really?”

Phil scoffed and continued further into the store, this time leaving Dan behind in his dust. “I do like the sound of Italian, though,” he admitted.

At that idea, Dan pulled out his phone and searched the internet for a pasta dish that his mother would enjoy. Less than a minute later, he settled on a pesto ravioli that promised to feed four with a preparatory time of under an hour. Perfect. A distraction.

They continued their trip through the market, gathering the eggs, flour, and all the other ingredients they needed. Side by side, they had both migrated west. Dan at one point regained control of the trolley and took it upon himself to lead Phil through the store on the route that actively avoided the family planning section. He thought he was going to make it home scot-free until Phil’s voice stopped him in his tracks.

“Oh, wait!” Phil called, just paces behind Dan. “I need some deodorant.”

“Okay. I’ll be in the queue,” Dan said, wanting to say as far away from the hygiene aisle as possible.

“No. You’ve got to come with me. Remember, you couldn’t stand the scent of the last stick I bought. Help me pick out a new one.”

Phil got Dan there. The laundry was becoming unbearable for Dan to do without holding his breath, not because of Phil’s natural scent, but because of the suffocating cologned antiperspirant he had trapped in his clothes. If Dan could have one good thing from that day, it would be relief from that foul perfume.

The two entered the aisle from the masculine end of the marketing binary, and Dan couldn’t help but laugh at some of the manlier products. “Lady Stealer Pomade,” and “Bear-Wrangler Aftershave” were the two that caught his eye and temporarily relieved him of the burden of knowing what was shelved at the end of the row, not three metres away.

Dan stopped at the neutral centre of the racks, holding two scents in his hands. “Do you want to smell like fresh cotton, or like lemon?” he asked Phil. “There is a wrong answer, by the way.”

Phil chuckled and removed the tops of the two approved tubes and held them under his nose. “Lemon.”

“Ding-ding!” Dan said as he watched Phil pivot to place the cotton-scented deodorant back with the others. Phil’s entire body shuddered in excitement over the item he had forgotten when he found the pregnancy tests in the pink and purple display.

“Oh, crap!” Phil cried as he walked over and plucked a box of tests from the rack. “I can’t believe we almost left without these!” He held the tests at his eye level and shook them eagerly. “It’s almost Thursday.”

Dan shook his head, unable to protect Phil from the truth.

“Don’t be nervous.” Phil tossed the tests into the trolley and reached for Dan’s hands. “In just four days, that little strip is going to confirm for us what we already know.” Phil pulled Dan close, hooking one arm around his back and resting the other on Dan’s stomach. “Our little bean is in there, growing strong and—”

“I got my period this morning,” Dan said, cutting off the baby-talk that only made him feel like a failure. He slipped out of Phil’s grasp. “It didn’t work. We’re just gonna have to wait.”

Phil nodded, still astonished by Dan’s words that managed to be screamed and whispered simultaneously. He couldn’t let him know of that astonishment. “That’s good news!” he finally said once his nerves allowed him control over his voice. “It means that you are working. That everything is functioning properly, and that something will happen soon.”

“Let’s hope,” Dan said as he reached back into the trolley for the tests and placed them blindly on a display before he wheeled their groceries to the check-out.

***

The balcony was the perfect place for Dan to escape the suffocating air inside the apartment as Phil prepared their dinner. Dan’s mum didn’t mind the scent. In fact, she found it quite endearing as she thought of the meal her son and son in law had sought to prepare for her. The sight of Dan, sitting in a lawn chair outside, sulking over the view of the leaves on the surrounding trees that blocked the street below caught her attention.

“That isn’t much of a sight,” Mrs. Howell said as she opened the door to the balcony and joined her son outside. She couldn’t stand to see him sitting alone.

Dan shook his head. “It’s really not. I just came out here because of the garlic smell. I can’t get it off my tongue, and I’d just get sick if I stayed in that gas chamber!”

Mrs. Howell had to stifle her laugh. “You’ve always been best mates with hyperbole.”

“I’m not exaggerating!” Dan defended. “I can’t take it in there.”

“Are you ill?” she asked.

“Not in the way you mean.”

Mrs. Howell swatted at Dan’s arm. “Everything’s a joke to you, boy. Isn’t it?”

The two laughed together, under the sound of the pigeons’ cooing in the branches around them.

“So the iPad is ready?” Mrs. Howell asked.

“Yup. It’s been wiped of all the old data. I even found its original charger.”

 _ _“__ Perfect. Your grandma will be so happy!”

Dan shifted in his seat, turning briefly towards Phil who could see him through the opened door. He waved and blew a kiss to Phil, and Phil did the same in return. Once he turned back around, he closed his eyes and rested comfortably, letting Phil’s love remind him of the future. Sure, he had started bleeding the day before, but he couldn’t take that as a sign of failure. Instead, for the first time in his life, Dan saw potential. Possibility.

The signs of his fitness became apparent when he took Phil’s advice and empowered himself with knowledge. After Phil went to sleep the night before, Dan took to his laptop for research. He read blog posts, articles, and medical journals on caramel pregnancy and fertility. In one sitting, he overloaded himself with the knowledge of what, hopefully, was to come. He accepted many things that night after he discovered the differences between caramel and non-caramel pregnancies.

Non-caramels received positive blood and urine test results 2-4 weeks faster than caramels. Caramels were at a 5% increased chance of carrying foetuses with genetic abnormalities. Some studies even suggested that fluctuating amounts of testosterone during the first trimester may even affect the unborn child’s sexuality. All this to say that Dan was simultaneously overwhelmed and reassured that this was what he wanted to do.

“What are you smiling for, sicky?” Mrs. Howell asked, breaking Dan from his thoughts.

Fuck! No one else was supposed to know yet. Dan and Phil’s plan was their own. Not even Harry, the man who inspired it all, knew what they were doing; and Dan wanted to keep it that way. Still, Dan’s mum’s eyes, the eyes that could pry even the worst truths out of Dan, compelled him to speak. He looked over his shoulder, finding Phil, busy watching and reducing spinach in a pan on the stove.

“Can you keep a secret?” Dan asked in a whisper.

“Sure. What’s wrong.”

Dan shook his head. “Nothing’s wrong. It’s just that, Phil and I were, uh, thinking of having a baby.”

“Daniel!” she cried, reaching for her son through the lawn chair and pulling him close.

“Woah, woah, woah!” Dan said, pushing his mother’s smothering arms away. “Calm down.” He held a silencing finger to his mouth. “We’ve been keeping it on the low.”

Mrs. Howell nodded as she leaned her arm against the chair’s side rest and placed her chin in her hand. She stared back at her boy in adoration. “It’s so good to hear you say that,” she said softly enough for Phil not to hear. I remember how much you hated your condition when you were a lad. Oh my goodness! The poetry you wrote.”

“Let’s not bring that up.” He tried to rub the memories away through his forehead. “Yay! Good for me. I’ve accepted what my body can do. Awesome!” he said sarcastically.

“Oh, Daniel, I remember the look on your face the first time you bled. You were so scared!”

“I thought I was dying!”

“I don’t blame you. There wasn’t the conversation back then like there is now. Not like before the doctors made the distinction between carrying males and hermaphrodites.”

“Intersex people,” Dan corrected.

“What?”

“The correct word is Intersex. Not hermaphrodite. They’re human beings.”

“Right,” Mrs. Howell said. “How did this come about?”

Dan sighed. “I like to tell myself that I came to the conclusion that anti-natalism isn’t a personality trait on my own, but that would be a lie. I owe my new outlook on life to Harry.”

“Oh!” Mrs. Howell squealed. “I always knew that Styles boy was a good influence on you!”

Dan rolled his eyes.

“I don’t know Phil quite like I know Harry, though. Who brought it up in the first place? What was that conversation like?”

“Believe it or not, I was the one who brought it up, and Phil was apprehensive at first—as he should have been. But we’re in this together now, and we’ve never been more united in our desire to have children. Phil is so cute, though. He’s a numbers man, so when we first started trying, he wanted a calendar with as many cycles as I could remember on it. He’s got this list of dates that I’ll be most fertile, apparently, and we try to—uh, get together on those days. And the days in between. It’s a free-for-all, really, but it makes Phil comfortable to have a plan.”

“How long has it been since you’ve started?” Mrs. Howell asked.

“Three-ish weeks.” Dan estimated.

“And you haven’t bled yet?”

“I have. It started yesterday. Luckily though, it’s been lighter than usual, and I haven't had any cramps.”

Mrs. Howell chuckled, mischievously. “Danny, that’s not a period. That’s called spotting, and it happens during the early stages of pregnancy.”

Dan’s eyes expanded to take up the whole of his face. “Shit! Mum, don’t say that!”

“I thought this is what you wanted.”

“It is. It is. It’s just. I don’t want to get my hopes up. Caramels aren’t likely to start testing positive until 3-4 weeks after conception.”

“Well, you’re not exactly asymptomatic. How does your chest feel? Are you sore at all?”

Dan shrugged as he pressed the base of his thumb up to his breast. He couldn’t believe what he was doing. He couldn’t believe he was comfortable enough to do it in front of his mum. “It’s pretty tender,” Dan admitted.

“I wasn’t going to say anything, but I did notice, right when you picked me up this morning, that you’re quite puffy, as well,” she said, pinching the fat on Dan’s cheek between her fingers.

“Rude!” Dan swatted away his mother’s hand.

“Fluid retention, spotting, unsettled stomach, sensitive nose, sore nipples,” she listed. “All things I experienced when I was pregnant with you! It’s basically medical law that what happens to a mother in pregnancy is likely to happen to her children. I’m willing to bet money that you're with child right now.”

“You really think so?” Dan asked, letting hope infect his lips with a smile.

Mrs. Howell nodded. “And I’m not getting back on the train ride home until I know for sure.” She stood from her seat. “Follow me.”

“Wait-wha—” Dan said as he chased after his mum.

“Phillip,” she called, reentering the apartment.

“Yes, Mrs. Howell?” Phil responded, placing his wooden spoon in a holder to give his mother-in-law his full attention.

“Dan and I are going to find us some dessert.”

“Great idea,” Phil said. “Are you going to the bakery on Talbot?”

Dan nodded. “Probably.”

“Take your time. This recipe lied. The pasta is definitely going to need more than an hour.”

“Alright,” Dan said, feeling a pang of anxiety run through his entire body as he found his wallet, and his mum grabbed her purse. “See you in a bit.”

The thought of their destination managed to weigh down Dan’s mind despite his weightlessness in the descending lift. Conveniently enough, the apartment was walking distance away from the 24/7 pharmacy that Mrs. Howell had surely spotted on their taxi ride from the train station. The pharmacy had been Dan and Phil’s go-to shop for their prescriptions, creams, cosmetics, and now, pregnancy tests.

An eager, teeth-bearing grin spread across Ms. Howell’s face, frightening Dan. He hadn’t yet gotten used to the idea that a positive result was a good thing. It had been twelve years since Dan and his mum found themselves in this exact position, only then, Dan had barely turned 17, and neither of them were ready for him to be a parent. The current smile on her face was the same as the one she had shown Dan as she spoke the words, “Your father and I will love you no matter what,” as they sat over the developing test. It was the same grin (of relief) that emerged from her cheeks when she said, “We won’t tell your father about this,” after the minus appeared in the result window five minutes later.

Dan knew that his mum’s reaction to his results now would be just as genuine as they were a decade ago. This time, it killed him to think he might have to face her with another negative.

After five minutes of walking, they found themselves at the entrance of the pharmacy. The electronic chime as they entered the shop startled Dan and let him know that everyone was now watching him.

“Good afternoon,” the clerk greeted from behind the register.

“Good afternoon to you!” Ms. Howell said as she led Dan to the back corner where the personal hygiene products were stocked.

Dan used his mum as a shield to protect him from the chemist squatting to inspect the yeast-infection creams on the bottom shelf for a pick-up. He stood immediately beside her as she searched the displays for what they needed. It only took her a few seconds to find a box of pregnancy tests that was affordable and easy to read. Still, she recognized that she wasn’t a professional, and that she could have picked the wrong type out of the variety the store offered.

“Excuse me,” Mrs. Howell said, turning to the chemist below her.

“Mum!” Dan cried.

“Oh, hush!” she said.

“How can I help?” the chemist asked as she stood.

“Um, yes. I was wondering about how accurate these are.” Mrs. Howell handed her the box of tests.

The chemist scanned the box for a percentage. When she lifted her head to relay the answer, her eyes caught on Mrs. Howell’s white hair.

“Oh, no!” Mrs. Howell laughed at the woman’s troubled face. “They’re not for me! They’re for my son.” She pointed to Dan.

“Oh, okay! That makes sense.” The chemist said. “So you’re a carrying male?” she asked Dan.

Dan nodded, feeling his cheeks swell with embarrassed blood.

“How many cycles have you missed, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Technically…” Dan muttered to himself, “one.”

The chemist nodded. “You’ll probably want these instead,” she said as she walked over to the rack and reached for a box of Early Detection tests. “These ones are a little pricier, but they’re very sensitive. They claim to be able to return a true positive two weeks sooner than a conventional test.” She handed the box to Dan.

Rather than the plus or minus like the other tests, the Early Detection brand used smiling and frowning faces to indicate positive and negative results.

“The test for those who plan,” Dan told himself.

“Will these work?” The chemist asked.

Dan nodded.

“Great. I’d suggest taking all three at the same time because there’s always a chance you’ll get a false negative. Even if two are negative and one is positive, it still indicates a positive result. Good luck,” the chemist said.

They both thanked her as she returned to her counter in the back of the store.

Dan hadn’t anticipated his mum grabbing him by the hand and sweeping him away from the exit after they paid for the tests.

“What the hell?” he asked as she brought him over to the single-stalled, unisex bathrooms at the front of the store. “No!” Dan squealed as he realized what was happening.

“Yes, Daniel. Let’s go,” Mrs. Howell said as she opened the door and ushered him in.

Above them, the automatic lights turned on when they detected their movement, and Mrs. Howell locked the door behind them.

“What about Phil?” Dan asked as he watched his mum reach into the plastic bag containing the tests and ripped the box open. “He’ll get suspicious if we’re gone too long.”

“Then, we’ll take it on the go.” She unwrapped all three tests that came in the box, took off their plastic protective covers, and handed them to Dan. “Just hurry up and wee so we can move it along. I won’t look,” she assured as she turned around to face the wall.

As much as he trusted his mum, Dan couldn’t just drop his pants, knowing that she was in the room. He had been naked enough that day. Instead, he pulled himself through the hole in his boxers and expelled the little amount of urine in his bladder across the nibs of all three tests. Seconds later, Dan had capped off the tests and rinsed them under the tap along with his hands. “Alright,” Dan said as he turned around to face his mum.

“You’re done?” she asked, walking over to him and taking the tests in her hands. She watched as the liquid climbed its way up the fibres of the test strip.

Dan nodded and clamped his hand over his mouth. “Can you hold onto them?” he asked, muffled and barely understandable.

“Of course I can,” Mrs. Howell said, smiling in attempts to extinguish the fear she found in her son’s eyes. “Now let’s go find something for dessert. Where’s this bakery? Talbot Road?”

“Yeah. It’s Harry’s.”

“You don’t say!” Mrs. Howell said as she dropped the tests in her purse and linked arms with Dan. “Lead the way.”

With that, Dan opened the bathroom door and did as his mother instructed. He brought her down the city streets until they reached Talbot where a blush pink storefront with the words, “Sweet Creature,” painted in white script stood across from a barber.

“How cute!” Mrs. Howell said as she and Dan entered the shop.

The warmth of the vanilla wafting out from the kitchen filled the room with the scent that Harry usually brought home in his hair. That day, the aroma failed to comfort Dan like it usually did.

“Mrs. Howell!” Harry called from behind the register as she and Dan approached the glass bakery case. He flipped up the counter and joined his family-friends on the other side. “What brings you to the city?” he asked, raising his arms to embrace her.

“Oh, just visiting,” she said. “How’s Anne?”

“She’s doing well!” As he stood across from Mrs. Howell, Harry’s posture bowed away from her, granting him the space to rest his hand at the base of his ribs and rub it along the axis of his stomach. It had been a normal enough expression that Dan had observed Harry do for years; to ground himself when he was excited or to store feelings of comfort in his centre. Today, it held a greater implication. The way Harry looked at Dan with a coyness in his smile made Dan suspect that Harry could see right through him. Like Harry could hear the gurgling of his stomach acids from across the floor. Like he could spot the low, upward slope of the hormonal stomach Dan had worn high-waisted jeans to hide.

Or, perhaps, the gesture was Harry’s way of telling Dan that he had news of his own. Yeah. Dan liked that idea better.

The instant Dan’s thoughts quieted and he snapped back into his body, he found Harry and his mum staring back at him with eager looks on their faces, expecting him to answer the question he didn’t even hear Harry pose.

“Huh?”

“What would you like for your dinner tonight?” Harry asked again.

“Oh! Umm… I don’t know. What have you got?”

“Well,” Harry said, returning to his post, behind the counter, “We just sold the last of our strudels. I know how much you like those, Dan. I’ve got everything you can see in the glass right here.

Mrs. Howell stepped closer to the case and bent over to inspect the pastries inside. “And what’s that you’ve got baking in the back?” she asked.

“Oh, those are the French vanilla chiffon cakes I’ve got in the oven,” Harry explained.

“Got any buns?” Dan asked under his breath.

Harry hid his laughter as he shook his head. “What about you?”

Dan held up his hands. “I’m not the baker here,” he said to divert the attention away from himself.

With his jaws clenched in vexation, Harry turned back to Mrs. Howell. “Do you see anything you like?”

“That chiffon smells delectable,” Mrs. Howell said. “How much longer until they’re done?”

“They’ll do about ten more minutes in the oven, and then another thirty to cool down. If you’re interested, Louis and I can even hand deliver it when it’s done.”

Mrs. Howell turned to Dan, asking his permission to invite the men over.

“Sure,” Dan said as he reached for his phone in his pocket. “I’ll have to text Phil to double the recipe, then.”

“We’re having pesto pasta,” Mrs. Howell informed.

“Sounds like a plan!”

Dan approached the register, as he slipped his phone back into his pocket. He reached into his other pocket for a £50 note from his wallet and placed it on the counter for Harry to take.

Harry wave the money away. “Nope. This is a gift.”

“Harry! It’s easily a £35 cake.”

“And Phil’s probably at home, making more than £35 worth of pesto pasta. We’re even.”

Dan shook his head and took his money back. “Fine. We’ll see you around seven o’clock?”

“See you then.”

With that, Dan and his mum left the shop and headed for the apartment. As they crossed the street and followed their steps back home, Mrs. Howell reached for her son’s hand and held it at her chest. “Are you ready?” she asked as she stroked the back of his hand.

“Ready? Ready for wh—” Dan’s stomach sank. The exchange with Harry had been distracting enough to make him forget that the tests had most likely finished developing. “Oh god!” He groaned, snatching his hand back to rub his eyes. “Let’s get it over with!” he shouted. “Just look at them and tell me what they say.”

____“Okay, okay,” she said, reaching down to the bottom of her purse. She returned with the plastic-encased testing strips, all bearing a circle, two eyes and a mouth—the orientation of which, she had to squint to see clearly._ _ _ _

____Dan watched her for at least ten miserable seconds, trying not to run into anything as they continued down the street. One by one, she flipped through the tests like they were playing cards until she had seen all three._ _ _ _

____“Oh, Daniel!” she cried out._ _ _ _


	4. IV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Word Count: 3059  
> Reading Time: 11 minutes 7 seconds

5 August 2019

Every morning, Phil made sure to be out of bed, or at least awake, by 5:00am. There was nothing more satisfying to him than being able to watch the sun rise. It took him a few weeks of waking up five minutes earlier every day in hopes that he would see it before he remembered that he could just Google what time the sun rose each morning. Phil had to hide idiosyncrasies like that in order to maintain his reputation. Everyone at home, and even Dan, loved to go on and on about how smart Phil was.

“Yes, Phillip, my son with a graduate degree in mathematics.” The words of Phil’s mum always lingered in the back of his head. In a single sentence, she managed to reduce Phil to his academic achievements. In one breath, she placed Phil at the top of the family pyramid; above Martyn and all of their cousins that didn’t realize that their mere existence was a competition among the other unsuspecting children of brothers and sisters.

Phil hated being “the smart one,” because he didn’t think that label was fair. As talented as he was at data analysis, he sometimes needed to use his fingers for basic arithmetic. When no one was looking, he even snuck out the old TI-84 to crunch some numbers. GASP!

What most people didn’t realize about Phil was that he was great at his job not because he could work the numbers, but because he knew people. He could take a step back from a graph and make calls that his associates with less experience than he and even the EEN’s AI wouldn’t have the wherewithal to make; decisions that actually made a difference. Aspects of a website and policies in place that Phil could look back at and say, “I did that!”

As he stood out on the balcony, mug of coffee in hand, watching the first golden rays of sun painting the city, Phil relished in the knowledge that he was one of his department’s most invaluable assets. That thought had comforted him during his shower. It even instilled him with the confidence to wear one of the bolder tops in his closet: his royal blue button-down with little, black heart print. He would usually save such an exciting and inadvertently feminine shirt for a night out with friends or Dan. But that day, Phil just had to be the peacock of the office.

Once he had finished his coffee, Phil turned around to head back inside. He jumped at the sight of Dan who had been leaning against the doorframe, bed-headed and tired-eyed. Phil cursed to himself as he set his mug on the balcony’s ledge. “You scared me half to death,” Phil said as he reached for Dan and pulled him into a hug. It was the least he could do given that Dan had only been wearing his pajama bottoms and the tank top he had worn to bed the night before. If Phil didn’t intervene, Dan would have had to deal with the morning cold by himself.

“You’re up early,” Phil said, fingertips gliding over the ridges of the goosebumps that formed on Dan’s speckled arms. He rubbed his warmth into Dan’s flesh as Dan’s arms settled around his back.

“I wanted to see you before you went to work,” Dan said. Once Phil let him go, he walked over to the chest-high balcony and rested his arms on the edge. Phil followed, taking a spot beside Dan.

“I can’t tell you the last time I saw a sun rise,” Dan said, taking in the sight of the half-born sun spilling upwards from the horizon. It made Dan regret going back to sleep every early morning that Phil asked him to join him outside when the noise of his before-work routine woke Dan up. “If only I had remembered how beautiful they were sooner,” Dan said. “This whole time I’ve spent complaining about losing our nights together. I didn’t even think that we could have been having mornings instead.”

Phil smiled. “We can have every morning together for the rest of time if you’d like.”

“I guess I can wake up with you, and then fall back asleep when you leave,” Dan said.

“Sounds like a plan.”

Dan snickered. “It's a good thing we can handle our early mornings and late nights” He leaned over, reaching into his pocket for the box he had brought with him. He placed the box on the ledge for Phil to take.

“Huh? Phil asked. "What’s this?”

“Open it.”

Phil did as he was instructed, reaching for the yellow box. He lifted the lid and peered inside the box, finding a dummy resting under a black piece of paper. “What?” Phil asked.

Instead of answering, Dan covered his growing smile with his hand.

Phil picked up the dummy to inspect the paper tag attached to its handle by a thread. It read, “March 2020.” Phil laughed at the date that was almost seven months out. He looked back into the box to better observe the image sitting at the bottom. He could barely make out the anthropomorphous shapes hidden in the black ink of the sonogram photograph.

“Oh! Oh! Oh!” Phil yelled. “Oh my god! We did—You’re pregnant?” Phil asked, winded with so much emotion that he could barely finish his sentence.

Dan nodded, freeing the surge of tears that Phil had built up instantaneously.

“Oh, my God!” Phil said, doubling over and sobbing joyfully.

Dan let Phil have a moment as he himself begun crying a small stream of happy tears.

A few seconds later, Phil caught his breath and faced Dan with his watery eyes and flushed skin. All he could manage to say was, “Thank you.”

“For what?” Dan asked.

“You just made me the happiest man in the world,” Phil said, pulling Dan in for another hug.

Dan chuckled. “Sure, I’ll be doing all of the growing, but I didn’t get here alone.”

Phil shook his head as he released Dan once more. “This is so much!” he said, taking a seat on one of the chairs. “I don’t even know where—When did you find out?” he asked.

“I took a test when my mum came and visited,” Dan said. “It came back positive, so I went to the doctors yesterday to confirm. Here we are.”

There were so many questions buzzing in Phil’s mind, but he couldn’t verbalize any one individually. How could Dan be pregnant if he said he was bleeding at the start of the week? How could they know so soon? How far along was he? Phil figured it would be best if he just let Dan tell his story first.

***

The day prior, Dan found himself in the waiting room of London’s first and only OBMSC. Dr. Wilhelmina Muller’s schedule had been jam-packed full of patients since the day she opened her caramel-centric practice on the eastern edge of the city. The interior of the facility was as sterile as any other doctor’s office he had ever visited, but unlike the doctor’s office he had been to in his teenage years, the décor was subtly masculine. Not a single flower, plastic nor painted, graced the walls or tabletops of the waiting room. The largest frame on the walls held a photograph of a sturdy tree with a large, round knot in its trunk, and every seat in the room was a powder blue.

The blatant color psychology didn’t work on Dan. He hadn’t spent much time at Uni pursuing the law degree he never earned, but when he did go, the course he found most interesting was Psychology. He knew all of the tricks the doctors were trying to use to manipulate him into comfort. To Dan, there was nothing comfortable about his situation. While he was secure in his sex, memories from visits to a gynaecologist still lingered. The feelings of confusion when he discovered that the word “gynaecology” meant the science of women. Dan wasn’t a woman. He felt guilty for having his condition; like he was a burden on a system that wasn’t and wouldn’t be accommodating to him for almost another decade.

Dan even tried to justify the flaws in the system. “It’s fine,” he would tell himself. “Could you imagine if there was a doctor only meant for green-eyed people? It would make no sense.”

The progress the medical community had made was incredible. As he checked into his appointment at the front desk, he mentally thanked the doctors at Oxford who afforded the world their insight into the caramel condition. It was that team of researchers who provided Dan and every other caramel the right to equal and fair health care.

Progress, however, didn’t take away the anxiety he had to go through as a patient, regardless of his caramel condition. As Dan entered the waiting room seating area, he spotted another man on his phone sitting across from the only other sofa. He wore blue jeans and a Chelsea jersey. If not for the enormous baby bump he held in his lap, Dan would have never guessed him to be caramel. Dan sat across from the man and created a squeaking sound against the seat of the bench loud enough to pull the man’s attention away from his phone.

_Fuck._

__Dan’s thoughts went haywire: He can see me. He’s going to strike up a friendly conversation, and he’s going to ask me questions that I don’t have the answers to. Goddamnit! Why do I have to be such a fucking idiot? Phil’s gonna hate that I came here without him. I wish he was here with me._ _

__As usual, Dan’s panic proved useless. The man merely raised his eyebrows in acknowledgment and went about his merry business on his mobile. That was it. Sometimes Dan wished his worry would one day be worth something._ _

__Ten minutes later, Dan was called back into the examination room. He was told to make himself comfortable in the oversized space where the blue motif had continued. In place of the tree photo hung the images of newborns and medical diagrams of pregnant men. There was even a large projector set up to display the images from scans on a white curtain across from a sofa where family could sit and watch._ _

__A nurse took Dan’s vitals, and five minutes later, Dr. Muller was standing before him; a short, brunette German woman in a purple turtleneck._ _

__“So, it’s my understanding that you believe that you are pregnant.” She said after she properly introduced herself to Dan._ _

__“Correct.”_ _

__“Okay,” the doctor nodded as she walked over to the sink in the corner and washed her hands. “When was your last cycle?”_ _

__Dan thought for a second. He was never keen on dates. “Well, I had a real period right before I went on my honeymoon, which was like… five or six weeks ago. But my husband and I stopped using condoms about three weeks ago.”_ _

__“So you’ve been planning to get pregnant?” The doctor asked._ _

__“Yeah. My mum suggested I take some home tests. One of them came up positive."_ _

__“How, exciting!” she said. “Right now, I’m prepared to do a scan and a pelvic exam. How does that sound?”_ _

__“That’s alright.” Dan folded his hands in his lap._ _

__“And when we’re done here, I’ll send you to haemetology to get you some labs to check for HCG in your blood. Why don’t you lay back for me, lift up your shirt, and I will just get this all prepared.”_ _

__Dan followed her instructions, leaning back on the exam bench and rolling up the bottom of his shirt to expose the bloated area of flesh that he had been obsessing over in secret for the past few days. In the meantime, the doctor cleaned the ultrasound machine to use on Dan. They reunited after they both finished their tasks; Dan with a nervous smile on his face, and Dr. Muller with one of elation._ _

__“Ready?” she asked, holding up the ultrasound wand for Dan to see._ _

“Yup,” he said, letting out a deep breath. He regretted so badly not telling Phil about his appointment in that moment. His nerves wouldn’t have been as bad if he had Phil as a distraction.

__“Have you ever been to an OBMSC before?” the doctor asked as she pressed the wand against the fleshy base of Dan’s stomach._ _

__Dan shivered as the warm gel on the wand startled him. “Gah! I was not expecting that! It made me need to pee all of a sudden.” He laughed with the doctor. “But to answer your question, no. I haven’t been before.”_ _

__The doctor nodded. “I’m sure you’ve been to an OBGYN, seeing as you grew up before MSC even became a field. But I’ll explain a little more about that,” she said, taking a pause to watch her monitor. She clicked a few times and pressed a button to take photographs. “So basically OB stands for obstetrics, which is anything related to pregnancy. Then we have GYN which is gynaecology, the study of female reproductive organs. Well, I consulted with the Oxford team, and they devised the new field of study called mascaecology, or MSC. We dedicate our work to studying and treating issues that deal with the anatomy of carrying males. Hence, OBMSC: pregnancy-related treatment in carrying males.”_ _

__“That’s so cool,” Dan said. He pulled the automated response from his, “I’m listening,” bank._ _

__“Alright. Your internal organs do appear to be healthy. I’m seeing some great shapes inside. I have also found a yolk sack, which is a clinical sign of pregnancy,” she said._ _

__To Dan, he was pregnant the second his mum showed him the positive test. He didn’t come to the doctors to be told what he already knew. There were other things he was concerned about._ _

__“Can you tell how old it is?” Dan asked._ _

__“Well,” the doctor said, trying to align what Dan had told her with what she was seeing on her monitor, “Before I started this practice, I was an expert in human embryology. Most obstetricians wouldn’t give you a gestational age before they can hear a heartbeat. But my decades of training give me the confidence to tell you that this embryo is closer to five weeks.”_ _

__Dan squinted._ _

__“That doesn’t exactly fit in with the timeline you gave me though—since you and your husband have only been actively trying for about three weeks. Is there any possibility that you and he could have had a slip-up? You did say that you recently went on a honeymoon.”_ _

__Neither Dan nor Phil got drunk enough in New York to forget protection. To Dan, it was comical how responsible they had been that holiday. Jet lag had prevented them from staying up past 10 o’clock most nights, and they kept the alcohol consumption to a minimum. New York was a light dusting compared to the blizzard that was their wedding night._ _

__“Oh God!” Dan said, bringing his hand to his forehead. He let out a groan that rattled everything affixed to the walls. “It was our wedding night! That was the only time before we started trying. It happened about five-and-a-half weeks ago.”_ _

__The doctor chuckled. “That is consistent with what I’m seeing. In a few more days, the embryo could have a heartbeat. If that was truly the date of conception, that would put your due date in late March/early April of next year,” the doctor asked._ _

__Dan’s nods could have been perceived as acceptance. It was the kinetic result of the intangible thoughts darting around in Dan’s brain._ _

___What if the conversation with Harry hadn’t happened? Would I have been this open to the idea of keeping the baby. Would I even tell Phil?_ _ _

____They finished the scan by printing out a few pictures. Dan was underwhelmed at the lack of identifiable features in the photos, but he knew that Phil would love them. After she finished Dan’s pelvic exam—which turned up normal as well—Dr. Muller ordered Dan labs, and gave him a handful of leaflets and a list of other upcoming test and check-ups he would eventually need to attend. Seeing it all on paper was simultaneously clarifying and overwhelming._ _ _ _

____“Do you have any other questions for me?” she asked._ _ _ _

____“Well, I—uh. Never mind,” Dan said. “It’s no big deal. You said everything was fine anyways.”_ _ _ _

____“It never hurts to ask, right?”_ _ _ _

____“I was just concerned about the bleeding. I talked to my mum about it and she said that because it was so light, that it was probably just pregnancy spotting, and that’s why I took the tests in the first place. Then, I went online, and every website was shouting at me to see a doctor for any bleeding during pregnancy and I was wondering if I was having—”_ _ _ _

_Don’t you dare say it. You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about._

______“I just needed some peace of mind, is all.”_ _ _ _ _ _

______She nodded. “I completely understand. Your mum was correct, spotting is normal this early on, but if it gets any heavier, call our office, and if we’re busy, go immediately to A &E.”_ _ _ _ _ _

______***_ _ _ _ _ _

______“Our wedding night?” Phil shouted. “We used protection that night, like we always did before.”_ _ _ _ _ _

______“Well, apparently, Phil, we didn’t!” Dan said._ _ _ _ _ _

______“Yes, we did.”_ _ _ _ _ _

______“We were both drunk, and it was hot and in the moment. Now searching back through the recovery folder in my drunken memory, I remember you, very vividly, not wearing a condom. You threw my legs over your shoulders, and you—”_ _ _ _ _ _

______“I thought that was just a dream!” Phil whispered, wary of what their neighbors and the people passing bellow could hear them say._ _ _ _ _ _

______Dan cackled. “No! It all happened, and now, we’re having a fucking baby because of it.”_ _ _ _ _ _

______“The timing,” said Phil, “you just have to admit, is divine.”_ _ _ _ _ _

______Dan nodded. “Maybe it is.”_ _ _ _ _ _

______Phil looked down at his wristwatch. His normal leaving time was drawing closer, and the sun was now shining above them. He stood, grabbing the yellow box again and retrieving the scan photo from the bottom. He held it up. “Can I have it? I want to keep it on my desk at work.”_ _ _ _ _ _

______Dan nodded. “Sure, Dad.”_ _ _ _ _ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See you tomorrow...


	5. V

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Word Count: 2665  
> Reading Time: 9 minutes 41 seconds

6 August 2019

“Daniel,” Maxwell Robinson said as he closed his office door behind himself, “how’s life?”

Dan chuckled as he and Max both took a seat on opposite sides of Max’s desk. “It’s been eventful, to say the least.”

“Well, I would think so with the wedding and all. How are things with the husband?”

“He’s been amazing, as usual,” Dan said. “I still have most of my hair.”

Max chuckled. “So, what would you like to talk about today?” 

“God, where do I start? One thing I learned once I became an adult was that I could be so much happier if I spoke up when things could be better, so I kinda wanted to run some ideas by you if that’s alright.”

Max leaned against his desk, now sporting a scowl. “Sure, you can. Is there something you’re unhappy with?”

Dan shook his head. “It’s not that I’m unhappy. There are just some changes that can be made for the benefit of myself and the EEN.”

“I’m all ears.”

“Right,” Dan said, “as you know, a few months ago, Brian Molko started his talk show, and from what I hear, it’s a success. How he is able to reach so many people when he sits down and talks about his life: past addictions, sexuality, fame, children. It’s what I feel like I need to be doing, and I finally feel like I have a large enough following to do so. As it stands, I just don’t have the right platform to do it. I’m proposing that instead of hosting four hours of music, I host an hour-long show that would consist of stories and interviews. I would talk about my life, mental health, and relationships.”

Max nodded, removing his hand from under his chin where it had rested as Dan spoke. “I like the idea. From what I’ve learned about you, you live an interesting life, and I’m sure you’ve got plenty of stories to tell. You’ve definitely got an audience that will listen. Just the other day, we had to press charges against someone who has hacked into our broadcasting server every night, from the U.S. , to steal your broadcast. There’s only one reason people in America want to tune into a British radio station to hear the same songs they can hear locally. They do it because they love you.”

Dan smiled, knowing that there was a “but” coming soon.

“But your show would cause a conflict.”

“How so?”

“What you’ve described to me is Brian’s show. If I allow you a show too, there would be too much overlap, and we want to cater to a diverse audience. I was at a meeting the other day with your husband, and he and his analyst friends told me that the alternative station’s demographics are skewed towards males, ages 25-35. I definitely think we need to appeal to the teenage demographic. Those kids that we need just don’t listen to the radio, but they do go online: Twitter, Youtube, Instagram. Instead of a radio show, what if I offered you an online podcast? We can have you sit down at a microphone, and we’ll build you a set in your own room. We can even film it and post the footage online. How does that sound?”

“It sounds great!” Dan said.

“And one other thing. There’s no doubt that the visual of you alone will attract the audience we’re looking for, but the content of what you’re saying has to keep their attention as well. Your sense of humor is authentic, and people really love that. Obviously, there will be topics that deserve composure, but I’m sure you can infuse that humor into your stories.” Max’s face turned up in epiphany. “How do you feel about having a co-host?” he asked.

“I wouldn’t mind a co-host,” Dan said, “but ideally, I wouldn’t want to get vulnerable with someone I didn’t have chemistry with.”

Max nodded. “I’ve got someone in mind who I think will pair very nicely with you.” He reached for his phone across the desk and dialed his secretary’s extension. “Yes, this is Robinson. Can you send Dominic Harrison to my office? Thank you.”

Dan tried to connect a face to that name, but no such face presented itself.

“You know Dom!” Max said. “He’s one of our interns. Out of the whole lot we hired last year, he’s the only one whose got radio-worthy energy, so we’re grooming him for a permanent position.” 

A few seconds later, there was a knock at the door, and Dominic entered the room, bringing with him the mop of pink hair Dan recognized from the times Dominic had brought him coffee. 

“Mr. Quadruple Espresso!” Dominic said as he waved to Dan. 

Dan waved back with a smile.

“Mr. Robinson,” Dominic greeted. “You wanted to see me?”

“Have a seat,” Robinson said, gesturing to the chair beside Dan.

Dominic did as he was told and crossed his legs once he sat. “I don’t know what I’m doing here, he said to Dan, “but I hope to God that I’m not getting fired. While I’m here though, I would just like to say that it’s an honor to officially meet you, you know.” He shook Dan’s hand. “You’re the reason I wanted to work here in the—”

Robinson cleared his throat to bring Dominic’s attention back to him.

“Right,” Dominic said, turning to face the desk. “How can I help you, sir?”

“Dan has a proposition for you,” Robinson said, pointing to Dan.

“Basically, I want to start a podcast, and Mr. Robinson recommended that you be my co-host.”

Dominic gasped, pulling his face in utter surprise. “No way, man!” he shrieked. “I’m sorry, I’m just so excited. I can’t keep it in, man. This is mental!” He tried to calm himself down by placing his hands on the sides of his face.

“So, is that a yes?” Dan asked.

“Absolutely! Yes!” Dominic said, shaking his hands out in the air.

Max Robinson nodded, pulling out a pad of sticky notes to write himself a reminder. “So, I’ll pitch this to the executives. I’m sure they won’t think twice about green-lighting it. In the meantime, why don’t you two get together, and start working out a formal proposal that you can present. Dan has expressed that he would like to have chemistry with his co-host, so I wouldn’t be opposed to allowing Dominic an extended lunch as long as you and Dan can make it back in time for his broadcast.”

Dan and Dominic both nodded, turning towards each other to find gratitude in their astonished faces.

“Off you go, then.”

“Thank you,” Dan said as he and Dominic stood, and Dan led Dominic out of the room. 

As they left the building, Dan and Dominic didn’t speak to each other, independently deciding to save the real conversation for when they could sit down. In his excited mess of giggles and soft mumblings, Dominic had failed to suggest a place for them to go, so Dan led him to a nearby pizza shop where he ordered a slice of pepperoni, so they could use one of the tables inside.

“Okay,” Dominic said, as they settled into their booth at the back of the restaurant, “what the actual fuck, man? Why me? Ah!”

Dan chuckled. “I want to talk about my life, and Max said that I needed to appeal to a young, female audience, so he suggested you to bring in that crowd.”

“Oh! So I’m only here for me good looks?” Dominic asked, pouting his lips and framing his face like he was some work of art.

“Not just your looks,” Dan said. “He also complimented your energy.”

“Me energy? It’s just good, old-fashioned ADHD and Dr. Pepper.”

Dan cracked up.

“But finally, I get complimented for me energy! Mum and Dad aren’t gonna believe it. Right, so let’s get to know each other. Tell me three things that are quirky about you, and I’ll do the same. I’ll go first: I only wear pink socks, I’ve got a tattoo of an elephant on me bum, and one time I went on Holiday to Atlanta, and I snuck into a strip club where I ate the best fried chicken I had ever had in me life. Okay! Your turn. Go!”

“Woah, woah!” Dan said, taking a bite of his pizza. “Let me think.” He set the slice down on its plate.

“Alright,” Dominic said as he reached for the plate and took a bite out of the pizza. 

Dan didn’t particularly mind, nor did he want to get off on the wrong foot with his future co-host. “Okay,” Dan said once he finished chewing, “I’m left-handed—”

“No fookin’ way!” Dominic high-fived Dan. “Me too!”

“I uh… One time I freaked out because I found a hole in my ear, but then I remembered it was pierced, and”—Dan fought with himself over whether to tell Dominic his big news. If their show got picked up, Dominic would eventually find out—”I’m pregnant.”

“Oh my God man. That’s so sick!” He took a last bite of the pizza before giving it back to Dan. “I better let you finish that.”

“I appreciate it,” Dan said as he took the food back. “This baby’s going to need every last bit of grease and processed meat I can feed it.”

“So, we can talk about your pregnancy on the show,” Dominic said, starting to list topics off on his fingers, “we can talk about my ADHD and the dangers of overmedicating. What else?" 

“I’ve got depression and anxiety, and that’s particularly what I wanted to talk about.”

“Right, right. Gender and sexuality, and how I don’t give a fuck about either. Are you in a relationship? We can talk about that.”

“Yeah, I’m married. I’ll have to ask my husband before we start talking about him, though.”

“No worries. I just want to get the ball rolling with ideas, you know? This opportunity has just been handed to me to create a place for discussion of topics that not many people are willing to talk about. I want people to feel seen when they listen to our show. I’ve got some mates that live in the same building as me. Maybe we could bring them on the air. They’ve got some groovy stories and opinions.”

“Do you think we could ever interview celebrities?” Dan asked.

Dominic nodded, eyes wide with excitement. “This is the EEN, babe. Anything is possible. Who’s hot right now? I bet we could get fookin’, uh, Oli Sykes or, or Melanie Martinez. She’s coming out with an album soon! I bet she’d love to plug that.”

Dan nodded. Dominic’s confidence was infectious. “Do you think we could get Muse?” he asked.

“We could get Muse and Coldplay and Arctic Monkeys in a heartbeat. Quick! Pull out your phone and start liking all their tweets.”

Dan laughed.

“I’ve got the perfect name for our show: The Black Hearts Club. What do you think?” Dominic asked.

“It’s so… Hot Topic,” Dan said, still riding out the aftershock of his laugh. “And I mean that in a good way!”

“Have you ever been in a Hot Topic?” Dominic asked.

Dan shook his head. “I’ve only ever seen pictures of them on myspace back in the day.”

“I went to one on that same holiday me family and I went on to Georgia. They’re magic. It’s like every artist you’ve ever listened to has their merchandise in the same spot. How convenient? It’s been a life-long goal of mine to see me name on a t-shirt among the others in one of those displays.”

“Really? You make music?”

Dominic nodded.

“What kind?”

Dominic shrugged. “I can’t describe it with one singular genre. It’s like Britpop, punk, and hip-hop’s love child; if such a monstrosity were possible.”

“It sounds right up my alley!”

“I have a few demos out on Soundcloud,” Dominic said.

“I’ll have to check them out.” Dan took another bite of the pizza. “From a young age, I knew that what made me happy was entertaining people. Whatever I could do to make people laugh or smile or just feel something, I did it. But then, social anxiety happened, and I started to stray away from certain mediums. Like, now, I have zero interest performing live anymore. I need the security of pre-production. That’s why the recorded bits—the phone games—are my favourite parts of my job. It sounds like you’re the opposite.”

“Yeah! You’ve nailed it. I feel most alive when I’ve got a crowd of people watching me sing,” Dominic said.

“Then tell me”—Dan wiped his hands clean with a napkin from the dispenser on the table—“how long do you see us working together?”

“You’re hitting me with the hard questions, aren’t you?” Dominic asked, scratching behind his ear. “Well, my buddy and I are researching how to be serious musicians, so whenever we crack the code, I’m out of here.”

“Thanks for your honesty,” Dan said. “The way things are going in my life; this is probably the last risk that I’m going to take for a while. I want this job for as long as they’ll let me have it.”

“And when they take it all away?” Dominic asked.

There it was: the question that brought Dan back to Earth. He had been having so much fun talking to Dom. All his passion and his animated spirit brought Dan back to when he was Dominic’s age. Full of dreams and worry. Neither had left Dan. The pursuit of those dreams had been demanding, and his worries had only festered. That conversation with Dominic made everything seem so attainable again, but then Dom just had to remind him of reality. _Was that what I sounded like when I was his age? So young, with such a bleak mind. ___

__“If we flop—”_ _

__“No, no, no!” Dominic said. “That’s not what I meant. We’re not gonna flop.”_ _

__“Expect the worst, be overjoyed at the best. But let’s say we don’t pick up enough views or we have a few good years together before someone newer comes along. After that, I’ll have had my baby, maybe I’ll even be on my way to a second one. Who knows? If our show goes away, I’ll have them, and I’ll have my husband, Phil. I’ll have my writing. I don’t absolutely need to work, you know. I do it because I want to. I think, most importantly, I do it because it’s my outlet for self-expression. It’s not like I can only do that at the EEN.”_ _

__Dominic nodded. “That’s so sweet; hearing how happy you are with your family and all. It makes me excited for the future.”_ _

__The two sat in the shop for another forty minutes, talking, planning, and exchanging information. Dan and Dominic bought more pizza, as Dan was worried that the owner didn’t appreciate them loitering, and Dominic was genuinely hungry. When 1 o’clock came around, the pair thought it a good idea to walk back to the office._ _

__“I swear,” Dominic said as he and Dan stepped through a crosswalk, “I’m gonna get back and Max’s gonna kill me. I can already hear him now. ‘Dom I said you could have an extended lunch not a doubled lunch!’ Fucking fascist.”_ _

__Dan laughed. “That’ll change when you get hired on officially.”_ _

__“I hope it does.”_ _

__“You’ll get better pay and a normal lunch.”_ _

__“I’ll have more time for lollygagging with the big dogs, right?” Dominic asked._ _

__Dan chuckled. “Yup. Speaking of lollygagging. Some friends of mine are getting together next Wednesday to make cupcakes for this animal shelter. My best friend owns a bakery, so he thought it would be nice to donate a few hundred for a benefit they’re having. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind you tagging along.”_ _

__“Aw, man, that’s so sick! I’d love to come.”_ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is the shortest in the whole story, and I might not have internet tomorrow, so I'm going to post chapter 5 and 6 today. I will resume my regular posting schedule on Sunday the 20th. See you then...


	6. VI

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Word Count: 4147  
> Reading Time: 15 minutes 5 seconds

**14 August 2019**

The mess of empty food wrappings that had accumulated on Harry’s desk was laughable at the start of the day. By 11:00am, it was pitiful. Rather than the remnants of his usual lunch, the plastic and aluminium packaging that once contained the most ungodly, processed foods a man could buy, disposable cups, and single-use silverware covered 75% of Harry and Louis’ shared surface in the bakery’s tiny office space. That, serving as a reminder of how self-indulgent he had been, in combination with what the humidity had done to his hair made Harry feel the lowest he had been all month. Not to mention, the hum of tinnitus in his left ear and the ache in his head when he leaned forward secured him an appointment with the ministry of misery.

He reached for an empty crisp wrapper, straightening it out with the edge of the table as if its sudden neatness would erase the fact that its former contents were now held in his inflated stomach—among other things. When his tidying hadn’t had the desired effect, he decided that the only way to offset the consequences of eating such un-whole foods was to eat something else. Something that would fill him up for good. Something sweet. Something large. After some more thought, he quickly figured that the only food in the center of that Venn diagram was watermelon. Louis hadn’t even known that Harry left the shop until he came back in through the front entrance, football-sized fruit in arms. The two shared a moment of eye contact before Harry took a seat at one of the indoor dining tables.

“I’m still kinda hungry,” Harry mumbled bashfully.

Louis nodded as he finished wiping down the countertop. “I’m sure you are.” He disappeared into the kitchen.

Harry stared down at the watermelon, realizing that he had no means of opening it. “Lou!” he called. “Can you please bring me—”

“Already on it!” Louis called back. Seconds later, he was back in the dining area with a bread knife, a spoon, and a paper plate. He placed it on the table beside the fruit and leaned over to kiss Harry’s forehead. “You eat whenever you need to, love.”

Harry smiled up at Louis, offering him his non-verbal gratitude.

“It’s almost noon. Should I start closing up?”

“Sure,” Harry said, cutting the melon in half and digging in with the spoon. “Dan and Phil should be here in a few.”

As Louis turned over the “Closed” sign, Harry scooped himself his first ball of fruit. Halfway through the watermelon, he had covered the table in sticky nectar. If he hadn’t been so captivated by the sugar on his tongue, he would have gotten himself a napkin. He would have noticed Dan and Phil approaching him from behind.

“Aw, shit!” Harry said as he spotted his friends in his peripheral vision. He stood to hug them, first wiping his hands on the apron, he just then realized, he had worn into the grocery store. “Are you guys ready to bake?”

Phil nodded. “Yup! Where’s Louis?” he asked.

Harry pointed to the kitchen as Dan took a seat at Harry’s table. “He’s around back.”

Phil thanked Harry as he flipped up the counter and headed for Louis.

Harry resumed his spot in front of the melon, chipping off more pieces to eat. “How are things?” he asked Dan.

“They’re alright,” Dan said. “I started waking up with Phil in the morning so we can—”

Harry zoned out right then. The sheer comfort he felt chewing and swallowing the watermelon on such a warm day was unsurpassable. As much as he wanted to focus on what Dan was saying, he couldn’t manage to look away from the fruit as he gutted it.

“Don’t forget to breathe!” Dan said. Harry finally looked up to him with a chuckle. “I haven’t seen you this hungry since we used to raid your mum’s fridge in secondary school!”

“I think I’ve got a bit of a sugar high,” Harry said.

Dan laughed. “I’ll say. Your pupils are huge!”

“I’m gonna need all the energy I can get if I’m going to make 250 cupcakes by Friday.”

“That’s why we’re here,” Dan said. “We care about you and the werewolves of London.”

“You have no idea how much I appreciate your guys’ help,” Harry said, pacing himself by pushing the watermelon away. “The recipes are on the counter over there; if you want to go get them so I can explain.” He pointed over to the register, closest to Dan.

“Sure,” Dan said as he stood and walked over to retrieve the pieces of paper on which Harry had written the recipes they would be using. Dan’s eyes were too busy skimming the papers to see the fold in the carpet where his foot snagged on the uneven surface, and he fell to the ground before a graceless struggle for his balance.

Harry jumped to his feet the second he saw the panicked expression on Dan’s face as he went down.

“Son of a bloody cunt!” Dan shouted at the top of his lungs as he hit the floor.

“Are you alright?” Harry asked, bending down to meet Dan at his level.

Dan nodded and grabbed onto one of Harry’s hands that he had held out, offering to help him stand.

The one-sided leverage felt wrong to Harry, until he noticed what Dan’s other hand was doing.

“One question,” Harry said.

“Shoot.”

He made sure Dan was staring into his dilated pupils so he could get a straight answer. “Are you pregnant?”

A second wave of panic spread over Dan’s face. “Maybe…” he said.

“I fucking knew it!” Harry cheered, pointing a finger at Dan in excitement.

“What gave it away?” Dan asked.

“When regular people fall, they put their arms out to protect themselves.” Harry demonstrated. “The second you realized you were falling; your hand went right to your belly.”

Dan chuckled off his embarrassment. “You caught me!” he said, lowering the hand he still had perched protectively over his abdomen. “Look at me; already so maternal.”

Harry flushed pink with joy. “Go on,” he said. “Let’s see her.”

“Oh, god!” Dan said, shaking his head. “You don’t want to see. I’m so bloated. There’s hardly any baby in there at all.”

“Please!” Harry begged. “No judgment here.”

“Fine,” Dan said. He grabbed the bottom of his shirt and held it up at his ribs.

Harry beheld the sight of Dan’s white pudge; a wall of puffy skin that was on its way to becoming firm, round flesh. Dan’s waist measurement had grown a few centimeters since the last time Harry saw him. Dan was sure the next time they met it would grow even more.

“How beautiful!” Proud tears welled in Harry’s bottom eyelids for a moment before he wiped them. “You must be further along than me.” Harry lifted his shirt too, exposing the flatness between his laurel leaves. “What? No!” Dan dropped his shirt and pulled Harry into a hug. “We did not actually get pregnant at the same fucking time!” “We did!” Harry said with a laugh.

Dan shook his head and pointed to Harry’s tiny stomach. “That’s not a baby in there. That’s just all the watermelon you ate.”

Harry took a step back to process his emotions. “How long have you known?”

“About a week,” Dan said. “I’m exactly six weeks and three days. You?”

“My bloodwork came back yesterday morning. We conceived the night after you and I made our little pact, so I’m probably, what, three-four weeks along.”

“Wait!” Dan said, remembering the conditions Harry had told him about that night a month ago. “If you’re pregnant, does that mean Louis proposed?”

Harry smiled, holding up his left hand where a gold band rested around his second finger. “I wanted to see how long it took you to notice.”

“Well, you’re only ever walking around with about a ton of metal on your knuckles.”

“You’re right.”

“Congratulations!” Dan said. “How did it happen?”

“Well, we went into my appointment last Friday with the understanding that if I was pregnant we would get engaged. I got the phone call from my GP, and Louis was ready with the ring. It wasn’t anything spectacular, but now we’re both immensely excited for the future. And-and congratulations on Baby Lester!”

“What is everyone so happy about?” Louis asked as he and Phil came back from behind the counter. “This is a joy-free zone.”

“We were just telling each other about what’s been going on,” Harry said.

Dan chuckled. “Which was a lot, apparently! I mean, we’ve only been apart for less than a week, and we’re already football mums.”

“So you told him?” Louis asked.

Harry nodded.

“Did Phil tell you?”

“Yup,” Louis said.

“Great! We’re all caught up. Are we ready to bake?” Dan asked.

Harry and Louis led Dan and Phil back into the kitchen where the bakery owners instructed the two how to operate the mixers. They all chose a job after Harry went over the recipes like he said he would do before Dan fell. Harry and Dan took on mixing the cupcake batter while Phil and Louis made the fondant dog face decorations.

After Harry had emptied the first bag of flour into the commercial-sized mixer, all four bakers turned around as they heard the banging of a fist on the glass window out front.

The paper sack Harry was holding over the bowl had been cut down the centre with a knife, so if he set it down to check the door, flour would have spilled all over the counter. “Lou!” he said, “Can you please get that?”

Louis groaned, dropping the ball of fondant he had been kneading dye into. “I’ve got food colouring all over me hands.”

“I’ll get it,” Dan offered. After a quick, jog to the front of the store, Dominic became visible through the glass windows. When he spotted Dan, he waved both hands and grinned wider than ear to ear.

“You made it.” Dan said as he let Dominic into the shop.

“I did.” Dominic said, pulling Dan in for a hug. “Sorry, I’m a bit late. Adam and I were recording, and we lost track of time.”

Dan shook his head. “That’s no problem.”

“I saw the ‘Closed’ sign, and I thought I went to the wrong address!” Dominic said. He toured around the unfamiliar bakery. “It’s very nice in here. Smells like cotton candy.” After a few seconds, he found the photograph of Harry and Louis baking displayed above one of the dining tables. “Which one is the owner?” Dominic asked.

Dan walked over and pointed to Harry, hair pulled back into a loose bun and arms flexed as he gripped a whisk.

Dominic chuckled. “I’d like to give him a proper snog,” he said out of the side of his mouth.

“He’s got a fiancé.”

“Damn.”

“Let’s introduce you to everyone else and get you an apron.” Dan said as he brought Dominic back into the kitchen.

“What was that?” Harry asked, back turned to the two as they entered the room.

“I forgot to tell you,” Dan said, “I invited my friend from work to help us out.”

Harry whipped around. _Friend?_

__Many people would fault Dan for his introverted nature, but Harry savoured it. Dan was never an expert at keeping lots of friends, but the ones he did knew that they were loved. To Harry, the notion that Dan had friends other than himself and Louis was unthinkable._ _

__“Oh!” Phil said. “Is this Dominic?”_ _

__Dominic nodded. “That’s me.”_ _

__Phil walked over to shake Dominic’s hand. “I’m Phil. It’s very nice to meet you. Dan has said so many good things about you.”_ _

__Dominic laughed. “Dan’s said so many good things about _you! _”___ _

____Louis' ears perked up at the sound of Dominic’s voice. “Is it just the sound of these mixers playing tricks on me brain, or do I hear a Donny accent?” he asked._ _ _ _

____“No fookin’ way!” Dominic said as he ran further into the kitchen. “You’re from Doncaster too?”_ _ _ _

____“Born and raised!” Louis said proudly before he introduced himself to Dominic._ _ _ _

____“And you,” Dominic said, coming around to face Harry, “must be the fabled Harry Styles.”_ _ _ _

____Harry let out a dry chuckle. “Yup.”_ _ _ _

____“It’d be my pleasure to help you today,” Dominic said, “that is, if I’m welcome. From the sound of it, Danny boy didn’t tell you that he invited me.”_ _ _ _

____“No, he didn’t.” Harry said, feeling his headache flare up, effectively preventing him from being confrontational, “But we’ll need all the help we can get today. Why don’t you cover up your clothes.” He eyed Dominic’s outfit; a white t-shirt tucked into a short skirt, pink socks, and a pair of Mary Janes. If he hadn’t seen Dominic wearing it first, he might have sported the look on a night out._ _ _ _

____Phil handed Dominic the last clean apron from the hook on the wall, and after Dominic slipped it on, he got to work beside Dan. Dan put Dominic to work adding to the mixer sticks of softened butter as he poured in an equal amount of sugar, and the mixing wand creamed them together._ _ _ _

____“So,” Dominic began, turning to Harry behind him, “you’re an animal lover?”_ _ _ _

____Harry nodded, eyeing Dan to get him to entertain his guest. “I’m always on the community forums online looking for events and groups to support. The London Mutts Organization said they needed a caterer, so her we are. It was either this or helping with a blood drive.”_ _ _ _

____Dominic chuckled. “Right on.” He turned back to Dan. “Hey, Dan. Can you give blood when you’re pregnant?”_ _ _ _

____Harry’s eyes narrowed._ _ _ _

____“No,” Dan said. “I don’t think the doctors recommend it.”_ _ _ _

____“It’s a good thing I didn’t choose that then. _Neither of us _would have been able to donate,” Harry said.___ _ _ _

______“Wait a second!” Dominic said, taking a step back from the mixer. “Dan’s pregnant? You're pregnant?” Dominic asked, pointing to Harry._ _ _ _ _ _

______Harry nodded._ _ _ _ _ _

______“Well, I hope I don’t overshadow your guys’ moments by telling you that I’m pregnant too,” Dominic said, leaning back and pushing out his stomach to rub. “We’re all pregnant!” Dominic cackled._ _ _ _ _ _

______“Very funny,” Harry murmured._ _ _ _ _ _

______Dominic straightened out his posture before coming between Dan and Harry to grab their shoulders. “But seriously, I think it’s very sweet that you two are such close friends, and you’re both having babies at the same time. I just think that I’d be safer on that side of the kitchen, d’you know what I mean? I’d hate to catch one for myself, standing so close to you two.”_ _ _ _ _ _

______Dan shook his head as he laughed. “Go ahead.”_ _ _ _ _ _

______At those words, Dominic bolted to the other side of the kitchen to hang out with his new friends. “Louis,” Dominic called, “did you catch the Rovers match the other night?”_ _ _ _ _ _

______“You hate him, don’t you?” Dan asked, once Dominic was out of earshot._ _ _ _ _ _

______Harry shook his head. “I don’t hate anyone.” He stopped the mixer and began scraping the sides of the bowl down with a rubber spatula. “I’m a bit jealous. That’s all.” He refused to make eye contact with Dan._ _ _ _ _ _

______“He’s totally harmless!”_ _ _ _ _ _

______“He knew about your baby before I did.”_ _ _ _ _ _

______Dan shook his head. “I plan on working with him long-term. He was gonna find out sooner or later.”_ _ _ _ _ _

______“Sure, but did it have to be before me?” Harry asked, throat stricken with the start of tears that even he could acknowledge were unnecessary._ _ _ _ _ _

______“Harry!” Dan cooed, leaving his mixer behind as he walked over and hugged him. “You’re my best friend in the whole world, and nothing—not even your hormonal delusions—could make you any less important to me.” Dan said before he kissed the top of Harry’s head._ _ _ _ _ _

______Harry smiled, finding tremendous comfort in Dan’s words. “It ain’t easy being this jealous,” he said as he dried his eyes with the top of his apron, “but I do it for you.”_ _ _ _ _ _

______“Oh, whatever!” Dan said, returning to the cupcake batter._ _ _ _ _ _

______“Honestly, I’m flattered that you started a podcast with the emo version of me.”_ _ _ _ _ _

______Dan sputtered out a laugh. “Now you’ve gone too far! He is not the emo version of you.”_ _ _ _ _ _

______“Watch,” Harry said. “I’ll be nice, so we can all see how much we have in common.”_ _ _ _ _ _

______In the time it had taken for Dan and Harry to mix and load all of the cupcake batter into the oven, Phil, Louis, and Dominic were halfway done shaping the white, brown, and black pieces of fondant into bite-sized beagles that would sit atop the cupcakes’ pastel pink icing. When all the manpower was directed to that task, they found that the painstaking process of cutting out hundreds of fondant parts was expedited. Dan was cutting out white, base circles while Harry punched out the brown ears and sides of the faces. Dominic was on black nose and eye duty as Phil and Louis assembled all the parts together. Not before long, Dan, Harry, and Dominic met their quota of beagle parts, so they left the assemblers to their own devices and resumed their position at the mixers where they prepared the frosting._ _ _ _ _ _

______“Alrighty,” Dominic said as he picked the frosting recipe off the counter and brought it close to read, “2700 grams of butter. 3300 grams confectioners’ sugar—Holy shit, Harry! Are you trying to kill us?”_ _ _ _ _ _

______“Hey!” Harry ran over to Dominic and swiped the recipe from his hand. “That is a closely guarded secret.”_ _ _ _ _ _

______“It was just lying there,” Dominic said with a shrug._ _ _ _ _ _

______Harry shook off his annoyance, physically resetting his mind by placing his hand on his sternum._ _ _ _ _ _

______Noticing Harry’s offense, Dominic nervously kicked the ground before he whispered a soft, “Sorry.”_ _ _ _ _ _

______“It’s alright,” Harry said. “Can you two bring me those ingredients over there?” He pointed to the mountain of blocks of butter and the pre-measured tubs of confectioners’ sugar beside the other items._ _ _ _ _ _

______Dan and Dominic nodded as they crossed the kitchen and brought the ingredients over to Harry. Dom handled the butter, while Dan lugged over a sealed bucket of transparent, red liquid.______

___“Jesus, Hare!” Dan said as he placed the bucket on the counter beside Harry. “Have you gone and drained someone’s veins for this frosting? Is that why it's a secret?”_ _ _

______Dominic had to stifle his laugh by biting his bottom lip._ _ _ _ _ _

______“It’s not blood, if that’s what you’re asking.”_ _ _ _ _ _

______“Sure!”_ _ _ _ _ _

______“This is _people _food.”___ _ _ _ _ _

________“Thousand-year-old people who sparkle in the sun?”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________Harry rolled his eyes as he began unwrapping and loading the butter into the bowl. He gradually combined the butter with the sugar, then the red flavour. When the timer on the ovens beeped, Harry and Dan left Dominic to take the baking tins out._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“Hey, Haz,” Dominic called after a few minutes of being alone._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“What’s up?” Harry responded._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“How do you know when the frosting’s done?”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“It should be creamy but still firm enough to hold its shape. Why? Do you think it’s done?”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________Dominic nodded. “Can you come over here and test it? Tell me if I’ve fucked it up.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“Sure,” Harry said as he jogged over to Dominic and grabbed a pair of spoons from the drawer beside the mixer._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“I just don’t want it to separate, ya know?”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“In all the years I’ve been making butter cream, I’ve never seen it separate,” Harry said with a chuckle._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________Dan watched the exchange from the other end of the kitchen as he continued to unload the fresh cupcakes. A ball of gratitude for Harry’s maturity filled his heart as Harry scraped out a tiny dollop of frosting on two spoons. He kept one for himself and gifted the other to Dominic. If Dan were in Harry’s shoes—made to feel insignificant by his chosen brother—he knew for a fact that he would have been beyond hurt by what happened. Unlike Harry, he would have kept his feelings to himself. He certainly wouldn’t have been as cordial, and dare he say, as friendly to Dominic as Harry was being if the roles were reversed._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“Oh, my god!” Dominic moaned after he licked the spoon clean. “This is so bloody good! Do you know what this taste like? Remember those tubes of strawberry lipstick they used to sell in the late 2000’s? It was called something like ‘Lip Chick,’ or ‘Hip Lips,’ or something corny like that.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“What?” Dan laughed. "No!”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“ ’Lip Bitch,’ ” Harry said. “I modeled the flavour after it.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“No way!”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“Yeah, way! The very first person I ever kissed was wearing that exact lipstick. I’ve never forgotten the taste.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“That’s so sweet,” Dominic said. “Back in the day, I was the one wearing the lipstick, and I’ll tell you something, Dan, it stained like a bitch. All over me face and clothes. It was a nightmare. No wonder they discontinued it.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“You used to wear lipstick as a teenager?” Dan asked._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________Dominic nodded. “Does that surprise you?” he asked, lifting the ends of his skirt in a curtsey._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“No. There were a couple of times when I was a My-Chemical-Romance-obsessed teenager that I thought it might be a good idea to wear some lipstick out to the mall, but I guess the spirit of Gerard Way never possessed me long enough to get me out of the house.” Harry and Dominic laughed. “I’m kinda glad I didn’t though. It probably saved me the hassle of being chased and getting called a Gaylord.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________Harry chuckled. “What did those awful boys on the tube used to call us?”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“Faggots?” Dan provided._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“No! It was something else! Something funnier.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“Nancies?”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“No…”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“Pansies?” Dominic asked._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“Pansies!” Dan and Harry said in unison. The three of them broke out into laughter._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“Really?” Dominic asked. “Did it happen in the 1920’s or something?”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“For real,” Dan said as he unloaded the last cupcake from the tin. He walked the tins over to the sink for washing. On the drying rack beside the sink, four of the most niche, miniature baking pans rested, and Dan knew exactly why they were there. “Wait a minute.” Dan held up one of the tins for Harry to see. “Are you practicing your Christmas pudding?”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________Harry nodded with a grin._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“Christmas pudding?” Dominic asked. “It’s still summer.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“Louis’ birthday is Christmas Eve, and one of my presents to him every year is a pudding because he loves them so much,” Harry explained. “I challenge myself by switching up the flavour every year, so I’m always trying out different fruits and spices.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“It’s crazy, Dom. At this point, Harry can make pudding in his sleep, and it’s so good.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“Louis’ a lucky man,” Dominic said. “I wish me girlfriend made me dessert for me birthday. She’s more of a chef than a baker.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“Oh, if she’s a chef, have you ever gotten her to make you Yorkshire pudding?” Harry asked._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________Dominic shook his head. “I don’t know if I can trust her with such a sentimental food. She’s not from England.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“Where’s she from?” Dan asked._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“Edison, New Jersey.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“Wow! An American.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“Yeah. When I first met her, she said she moved here as a political refugee. Turns out the real reason was just the University of London.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________Dan and Harry laughed._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“How long have you been together?” Harry asked._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“A year, give or take.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“Well, that seems long enough to spend the holidays together. Every year, us four have ourselves a little get together to celebrate Louis’ birthday and Christmas. I’m sure that if neither of you have plans, Louis would love to see you there this year. You two seem to get along well.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________Dominic couldn’t have been more honored by the invitation. From the moment his stepped into the bakery, his social anxiety told him that he was intruding. That everything he did or said only annoyed Harry, and that his relationship with Dan would suffer as a result. In just two hours, he convinced himself that he had ruined his breakout role at the EEN. But the offer from Harry and the eager nod from Dan as he turned around to face him for reassurance calmed his worries._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“We’d love to come!” Dominic said. “You’ll have to remind me though. What’s that, like four months out?”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“Yup. We definitely will.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________Four months out. The quantity never seemed so large to Dan. In four months, he and Dominic would have begun their podcast. In four months, he and Harry would have found out the sexes of their babies. In four months, Louis would be 28 years old. The thought of it all exhilarated Dan. For, in just four months, Dan would be a different person._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See you Sunday...


	7. VII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Word Count: 4168  
> Reading Time: 15 minutes 10 seconds
> 
> Warnings: Vomiting, mentions of fetishism.

**16 August 2019**

“How do I look?” Dan asked as he stepped out from the bathroom, into the hall where Phil could see him. He strutted further into the living room, voguing with every step to show off all the effort he had put into his look that evening.

The day prior, he had gotten his hair trimmed in preparation for his and Phil’s date. He had plucked his eyebrows, and he had moisturized his lips with a balm he knew would render him tender and kissable by the end of the night. He wore the shirt with a printed, kaleidoscope lace that hid skulls among the thread pattern. He tucked the bottom of his button-down into a pair of black, corduroy trousers.

Phil gasped as he stood to meet Dan. “You’re as cute as a button.”

“You don’t think this shirt’s a bit tight around… my, uh”—he motioned to his midsection—”my… the baby?” he asked. Even if the baby was barely the size of a blueberry, Dan couldn’t exactly take full responsibility for not properly fitting into the garment the way he did when he first bought it.

Phil couldn’t help but smile as he focused his attention to where Dan had directed it: the roundness that had been pulling the form-fitting fabric taut. “I mean, your belly’s definitely the statement piece of the whole ensemble,” Phil said.

“That’s the thing. Is that a statement I need to be making this early on?”

“You asked for my opinion, but I think you’ve already made up your mind,” Phil said. “You could have just let the shirt hang over. Hide the baby away, and not cause a fuss. But no, you’ve done the extra step of tucking it in; making your tiny bump that much more visible.”

“Jesus, Dr. Lecter! It was a yes or no question. No need to psychoanalyze me.”

Phil chuckled. “You’re ready?”

Dan nodded.

“You’ve got your mints?”

Dan pulled the tin of breath mints from his back pocket and held them up for Phil to see. “Yup.” Less than twenty-four hours before, Dan got his first acidic taste of morning sickness. Dan’s mum suggested that he try to eat mint-flavoured foods to sooth his upset stomach, and so far, it worked like a charm.

“Great. And one more thing,” Phil said. “If you get tired or dizzy or whatever, promise me that you’ll tell me so we can go home.”

“I will,” Dan said. “I’m hungry like a motherfucker, though. I doubt any amount of nausea will be enough to make me cancel our dinner plans.”

Phil didn’t let Dan’s confidence assuage his worries that their date would wear Dan out. Dan had been the one to suggest that they splurge on a nice dinner, and Phil had tagged on the condition that they go to the art gallery that Friday night. “It’s my coworker’s, girlfriend’s passion project,” Phil explained to Dan as they shared the backseat of a taxi. “I told him that I’d swing by to support her.”

“What’s her deal?” Dan asked, the bumpiness of the car ride stealing his ability to articulate his questions with specificity. They hadn’t left the apartment for more than five minutes, and Dan was already feeling sick.

“Are you okay?” Phil asked, noticing the tenseness in Dan’s jaws as he swallowed down his saliva by the mouthful.

Dan nodded. “I’m good,” he said.

“Aw! My poor baby!” Phil rested his arm around Dan.

Dan knew he wasn’t on the brink of vomiting. Not like he had been the day before when sweat tore through his brow and he could feel his throat closing off. The persistent bouts of nausea and vomiting were eerily similar to the symptoms of sunstroke he got while tanning in Morocco nearly seventeen years before. Only the night before, he was at home, and rather than his mum rubbing his back to comfort him through the lightheadedness and stomach cramps, it was Phil.

When the taxi stopped at a light, Dan reached into his back pocket for his mints. He stuffed three in his cheek and let them dissolve there as the car continued down the road. “Is she a full-time artist?” Dan asked, picking up the conversation where they had left it.

Phil shook his head. “I actually couldn’t find much about her online. From what I’ve read, her work is abstract.”

Dan allowed himself a chuckle. “So, I’ll be squinting and turning my head all night?”

“Pretty much,” Phil said.

The pieces on display were not as abstract as either of them had anticipated. Phil had failed to specify that the artist’s specialty was in photography, so Dan entered the gallery expecting to find statues and paintings on display. A first skim of the images mounted to the white walls, as rude as it was to admit, kind of bored him.

“Pareidolia,” Phil read aloud from the sign above the front wall’s largest photograph, “By Meredith Caldwell.”

“Huh?” Dan asked as he reached into his back pocket for his phone. He opened google and typed the word in. “According to Wikipedia, Pareidolia is the tendency for incorrect perception of a stimulus as an object, pattern or meaning known to the observer, such as seeing shapes in clouds, seeing faces in inanimate objects or abstract patterns, or hearing hidden messages in music.”

“Okay,” Phil said. “So we’re looking for subliminal messages.”

“Sounds like it.”

“Shall we?” Phil asked as he gestured for Dan to lead them through the exhibit.

Images of nature filled the first room. Leaves on trees with stripes that curved to form numbers and words like “patience,” and “struggle.” A grey cloud of smoke, shaped like a dove. A recreation of a Rorschach test card in red and black ink.

“Ooo, Phil, let’s see if you’re insane,” Dan said, pointing to Meredith’s inkblot, “Tell me what you see.”

“A penis,” Phil said without hesitation. “Hands down, that is a phallus.”

Dan cackled. “No way! You’re telling me that you look at this, and you see a dick? It’s literally a womb.” Dan pointed to the two red spheres on either side of the black, downward-facing triangular body. “Those are ovaries!”

Phil shook his head. “Those are balls.”

“I understand that they’re analogous structures, but I’ve yet to see a pair of balls spread that far apart.”

“Maybe we see what’s most familiar.”

“I have a penis, Phil.”

“Maybe it does too!” Phil shrugged. “That’s the beauty of it. Maybe it was made for people like you who are sympathetic to both.”

“I can get behind that.”

The two left the ink-blot behind as they turned the corner and ventured into the next room of photos. The second room was something out of a Blumhouse production. Houses with eyes made of windows and open doors as screaming mouths. Wilting rose petals that decayed in the shape of a skull. The face of a demon, naturally carved into the side of a mountain. A bloody alien head between the legs of a raw, butchered turkey.

“My god! That’s so gross,” Phil said as he reached for Dan’s hand. “It’s making me want to vomit. I can’t imagine what it’s doing for you.”

Dan shook his head. “I’m actually doing alright. The nausea goes away when I’m moving around.”

“That’s good to hear.” Phil pulled Dan close and pressed a kiss to the side of his face.

“Conversely,” Dan said, “all this walking I’ve been doing to avoid having to puke is doing a number on my back.”

A frown stole Phil’s face. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’ll do whatever it takes to keep food down for Baby Lester.”

Dan was curious how long his doting-father-to-be act would last. He could already imagine himself in his ninth month ready to surgically remove the kid with a butter knife if it meant an end to his symptoms. He was barely on his second day of what he considered to be “real pregnancy,” and he was starting to hate it: the physical manifestations and the mental unease it caused him. Those little mantras, “Whatever it takes for Baby Lester,” and sometimes even, “They are my future. I love them,” were what kept Dan going.

The next room brought pictures of abundance. Piles of sand that hid the color corrected images of sea life among the coarse granules. The face of God on beans and toast. The tropophobic nightmare that was the eyes in the holes on a slab of volcanic rock.

Not before long, they reached the end of the gallery where reporters from local newspapers gathered their notes and the other patrons of the artist enjoyed each other’s thoughts, the music, and the open bar.

“Is that Meredith?” Dan asked as he pointed to the woman surrounded by a swarm of people in the centre of the room.

“I think so,” Phil said. “And there’s my buddy, John. When the crowd dies down, I want to go say hello, if that’s alright.”

Dan nodded.

The two waited around a standing table that Dan leaned against to alleviate the pain in his back. Noticing Dan’s discomfort, Phil got behind Dan and rubbed the muscles under Dan’s ribs. “Is that it?”

Dan shook his head. “Lower.”

Phil moved down to Dan’s high-lumbar region.

“Lower.”

A pang of surprise struck Phil when his hands ran past the top edge of Dan’s belt. “You’re so dirty,” Phil said.

Dan scoffed. “The last thing I want right now is sex. Please, just keep going.”

“But people can see us.”

“They’re all so posh; they’ll think you rubbing me down is some sort of performance art.”

Phil laughed. “Fine,” he said as he placed his hands back on Dan and rubbed gentle circles into the space just above Dan’s hips.

Minutes later, Meredith and John were alone, so Phil paused Dan’s massage and called his acquaintances over to their table.

“Phil! You made it!” John said, pulling Phil into a hug. He did the same to Dan after he introduced himself.

Meredith made her proper introduction to the men, upping John’s gesture with cheek kisses.

“What did you think of my exhibit?” Meredith asked.

“It was super interesting.” Phil offered “All the hidden images…”

“Yeah! I wanted to capture the human need to find familiarity in unfamiliar situations. It’s in our psychology, you know.”

Phil nodded.

“And anything you didn’t like?” Meredith asked.

“Oh, Lord,” John said. “How many people have you asked that question, and how many of them have given you real criticism? Like none!” He shook his head. “Phil, I’ll be at the bar, if you and Dan would like to join me. If not, it was nice seeing you both.” John waved them goodbye before he left the group and followed through with his intentions.

“Please,” Meredith said, raising up her hands, palms pressed together in supplication. “No one’s perfect. I just want to improve my work.”

“I’ll take the bait,” Dan said.

Phil turned to Dan with eyes that begged him to save the woman’s feelings.

“I thought that some of the pictures were either so personal, or they lacked a concept completely. Basically, some photographs out there were so far from universal that they were unreachable. Not all of them, though. Some of them out there scared the shit out of me, and I loved them. A face just kinda pops out of nowhere, and it’s like you’re watching a horror film.”

A moment of tense silence passed between the three in which Meredith gathered her thoughts. Phil was scared that she had lured Dan into an artistic debate, but Dan seemed like he was up for the challenge.

“Valid,” Meredith finally said before she raised her hand and called for a server to bring her a glass of champagne.

After she took a flute for herself, the server extended the tray to Phil, who took one as well. When Dan was offered the alcohol, he shook his head and wrapped his hand around the top of his stomach as if his bump was explanation enough.

“No, thank you,” Dan said.

The server returned to the bar to replenish the drinks he had lost.

“Are you expecting?” Meredith asked, having noticed Dan’s. body language.

“I am,” he confirmed. “Thank you for asking.”

“Congratulations! Funny enough, I was planning to do my next exhibit on maiesiophilia, and all my models are women. I’d love to feature you along with a few other caramels. How does that sound?”

“It sounds… cool,” Dan said, unsure of what exactly he was being asked to model for. “I’d have to think about it, though.”

“No worries! Have Phil give John your information so we can get in contact. Cheers!” she said before she left to find her boyfriend.

“Wikipedia.com,” Dan narrated as he pulled his phone from his back pocket and opened another internet browser. “May-see-oh-phil—Wow! That’s a lot of vowels. Maiesiophilia: pregnancy fet—” Dan couldn’t even finish the word; he was that shocked.

“You’re joking!” Phil said as he took the phone from Dan and read the beginning of the article for himself. “Oh my god! How grimy?”

“Yup, I’m definitely never going outside again.”

“Do you think the restaurant will seat us early?”

“Let’s try our luck and get the fuck out of here.”

Another Taxi dropped them off in front of a four-star Japanese restaurant. The hostess was able to move their reservations up thirty minutes. She led them to a table in the lower-level dining lounge where one of the only sources of light was the aquarium in the floor.

“Are those real koi swimming down there?” Dan asked as Phil rushed around to pull out his chair. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, my love,” Phil said. “And yes. I think they are real.” Once they were both settled, they looked over their menus. Phil decided on the prawn tempura before the sound of Dan’s laughter caught his attention. “What’s so funny?”

Dan met Phil with the smile Phil vowed then and there to try to bring out more.

“I can’t eat 90% of the food here,” Dan said. “I don’t know why I picked this restaurant.” He chuckled.

“Oh! I didn’t even think about that,” Phil said. He looked down at the menu, this time searching for the fish-free items. “They’ve got chicken and beef bento boxes.”

“I think those are my only options.” Dan leaned on his elbows, taking a look around the restaurant. “So, it looks like we’re gonna have to put our trip to Japan on hold for a few years.”

“I guess we will,” Phil said, with a sigh. He toyed with their budget in his head for a second before he made Dan an offer. “We can still go this year, if you want. We’ve already saved three-quarters of the funds. If we just make some cuts everywhere else; walk around more instead of taking taxis, not eat out as much, clip coupons and buy in bulk; we might be able to have ourselves a New Year’s babymoon.”

“A babymoon?” Dan asked. “It sounds like a lot of fun, but are you sure you can get time off for that, being so new at your job. And mine and Dom’s show. For the last week, we’ve been in limbo, but as of this morning we’ve officially been green-lit.”

“That’s so good to hear!” Phil said, reaching for Dan’s hand across the table.

“Yeah! We go live in October. I just don’t know if it’s the right time to step away from it all.”

Phil nodded.

“And I don’t want to be the type of parents that take their kid on a bunch of trips while they’re an infant and ask them the rest of their life if they remember going to all those wonderful places.”

“I formed my first meaningful memory when I was like seven. What about you?” Phil asked.

“I try not to remember anything before my eighteenth birthday.”

A waitress approached the table, order slip in hand. She took their drink orders, then moved on to their main courses.

“Prawn Tempura, please,” Phil said.

“And for you?” she asked Dan.

“The beef bento box. One question about that,” he said. “Is the meat in the California rolls cooked?”

“Yes. It’s imitation crab,” the waitress said.

“Perfect.”

After a few minutes of waiting, the waitress returned with their drinks, and thirteen minutes later, she brought their food. The second the box containing the vinegar rice was placed in front of Dan, his stomach fell. Still, he hadn’t been able to keep anything solid down all day, so he put all his energy into eating his dinner. Bite by bite, he swallowed the strips of teriyaki steak that had been pre-cut for him along with the pieces of California roll. It wasn’t totally unbearable as long as he washed it all down with some water. Just when he thought he was done, he looked down to find the two compartments containing the cabbage and shiitake dumplings and the grilled zucchini still awaiting consumption.

He loaded as much of the thinly cut squash onto his chopsticks and welcomed the bundle into his mouth. As much as he felt like he needed to expel everything he had just eaten, he was too mature—and too pregnant—to not even attempt to eat his vitamin-rich vegetables.

“How’s your food?” Phil asked, nearly done with his prawns.

“Very good,” Dan said once he had finished the last of the zucchini. The act of swallowing brought on the largest wave of nausea Dan had yet to feel. It hit him in his arms as a tingle that stole his dexterity. Against his wishes, his fingers dropped the utensils between them, and they fell to the table with a loud clatter.

“Are you okay?” Phil asked.

Dan nodded as he stood from his seat. “I just drank my water too quickly. I’m gonna go to the bathroom real quick.” He walked toward the public restroom on the other side of the restaurant.

Along the way, he popped more mints into his mouth, hoping that the herb would soothe his restless stomach. It didn’t help fast enough, for when Dan finally reached the restroom and had a second to compose himself, he felt the earth’s plates shift below him. His unsteady feet took him to the handicap stall, which his hands had enough precision in them to lock and fell to his knees beside the toilet.

“Fuck,” Dan whispered, vision blurring as he centred his head over the bowl. All he could do in that moment was wait for the vomit to come as he held his mouth open, dribbling out the stream of saliva that his mouth was producing. The pain in his back was flaring up again with his spine flexed in a hard hunch.

Dan had only a moment to catch his breath before the bento box came barreling up his throat again, settling in its final resting place at the bottom of the latrine. In the few seconds between his expulsions, he focused on his breathing and entertained the background thought that someone would come in with him. He had been lucky enough that the men’s’ room had been empty when he came running in, but both dining rooms looked full, and Dan’s privacy could have ended at any time.

At that point, Dan gave up resisting the vomit. As much as he had enjoyed his dinner, he was fine accepting that Baby Lester hadn’t. Everything would be fine as long as he could use his unborn child as a scapegoat.

The taste of iron and bile coated Dan’s tongue as he stood from the ground and flushed away his sick. He tried his hardest not to wipe the tears from his face that had come as the result of it all, considering he had just been touching the floor and the seat of a public toilet. He was able to wash away all of those germs when he reached the sink.

“Anything for you,” Dan said as he stared back at himself in the vanity.

With a handful of tap water, he rinsed his mouth, and made sure to swallow a few more mints before he left the restroom and headed back for Phil. He didn’t have the heart to tell Phil that he had just tossed his entire meal.

Phil didn’t need confirmation either. Even under the dimmed, romantic lighting, the redness in Dan’s eyes was still visible. Dan’s sniffling was another giveaway. “If I called over the chef and told him that the food made you sick, do you think we’d get our dinner for free?” Phil asked.

Dan chuckled in shame. “God, is it that obvious?”

“Well, it’s only obvious to me because I know your tells. You still look great,” Phil assured.

“It’s so embarrassing!” Dan said, leaning over the table and rubbing his forehead with the side of his hand. “Losing control of your body. According to my mum, morning sickness is a good thing. Apparently, it means that Baby Lester’s really healthy. So maybe, they know what they’re doing.”

“They have to get their life-force from somewhere,” Phil said.

“Right! They just go and steal mine. I see how this whole pregnancy thing works.”

“Are you tired? Do you want to go home?”

Dan nodded, feeling immensely guilty for being the cause of their date’s premature end. “I’m sorry,” he said, pulling a frown.

“Don’t be sorry!” Phil said as he raised his hand to motion for the bill. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”

Phil held Dan as close as the seatbelts in the taxi would allow him on the ride back to the apartment. The only way he could stand the nausea and the trauma of having vomited in public—oh and let’s not forget, the embarrassment of being asked to model for a sexual deviant—was to close his eyes and to rest his head against Phil’s shoulder. Dan just wished he was a bit shorter than Phil, so they could fit together better.

That discomfort was short lived as the taxi brought them back home, and they entered their apartment; ready to unwind for the night. Phil instructed Dan to change into his comfortable clothes while he rushed to their kitchen to brew Dan a cup of peppermint tea.

Dan did as he was told, stripping down and putting on a t-shirt. He was too tired to clean up his dirty clothes off their bedroom floor, so he left them there and promised himself that he’d bring them to the hamper the next day. Before Phil joined him, Dan had time to slip off to their bathroom and take a pain killer for the ache in his back and the burgeoning tenderness in his stomach. He was sure it was food related. Whatever its cause, it would surely be gone in the morning.

Phil entered his room to find Dan laying on his back, nose buried in the parenting book he had bought the day before while they were out shopping. “Here you are,” Phil said as he handed Dan the aromatic mug of tea.

Dan thanked him as he took the drink and blew on it to cool the scalding liquid. “You are the best husband a man could ask for.”

The grin on Phil’s face grew as he took off his slacks and threw on an old pajama shirt. He unraveled the covers beside Dan and slipped into the bed beside him. Dan’s concentration on the book and his tea gave Phil a good three minutes of solid silence which he used to stare at Dan. The hopeless condition of his curls which had lost their composure the second Dan touched his head to his pillow. The youthful roundness to Dan’s cheeks. The sharp corner of Dan’s thumb as he turned the pages. The swell of Dan’s abdomen that he had been ignoring.

Phil placed his hand on Dan, just wanting to make sure that it was all real. That Dan was still honorably his, and that he was carrying their child. He still couldn’t believe it.

“Having fun there?” Dan asked, finally setting down his book and drink on their bedside table.

“Yes,” Phil said, retracting his hand from Dan and feeling sorry that he hadn’t asked to feel him first. “I don’t know how many times I can tell you this but thank you.”

Dan smiled, and lifted up his shirt, fulfilling the want that Phil wouldn’t verbally ask of Dan. “Go ahead,” Dan said.

Phil set his hand back onto Dan’s bare skin this time. He felt the throbbing pump of a pulse in Dan’s core that shook his hand. “Oh my god! Is that the baby?” Phil asked.

“No. That’s all me. My abdominal aorta. Baby Lester’s heart is way too small to be felt,” Dan said.

“Aw!” Phil cooed. “Thank you for that tiny heart.” He left a kiss on the crest of Dan’s belly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See you tomorrow...


	8. VIII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Word Count: 6742  
> Reading Time: 24 minutes 31 seconds
> 
> Warnings: gore, pregnancy loss, panic attacks, medical emergency, brief mention of suicide.

**17 August 2019**

Phil woke up to the brush of Dan’s hair across his nose. They had begun their close, cuddle-sleeping arrangement the night that Dan announced to Phil that he was pregnant. When Dan came home after midnight, Phil made sure to bring him into his arms; placing one under both of their heads and using the other to cradle Dan’s flesh that held in their baby. It took a few days for Dan to get used to Phil’s body heat directly behind him. It was nothing one less blanket couldn’t fix. He found that he did sleep a bit sounder with Phil’s arm weighing him down. Phil’s leg even provided a seat for Dan to push up against. The change was well worth the dead limbs they sometimes woke up with.

The scent of Dan’s hair, so natural and familiar, could have lulled Phil back to sleep if he wasn’t strong enough to resist. Against the desire he felt in every bone of his body, he had to get out of bed. He stood and tucked the remaining sheet around Dan to keep him warm.

The fresh air outside their bedroom smacked Phil with a breeze that accentuated the dampness of certain parts of his clothes: an old, t-shirt and his underwear. The cold sensation—all down his front, under his arms, and between his thighs—wasn’t something overly-peculiar.

_Just the result of a night of Dan and I sweating all over each other._

Phil went along his everyday routine, brewing a cup of coffee and microwaving himself a bowl of instant oatmeal. It was only when Phil leaned back against the sink to wait for his breakfast, hands held at his groin, that he was able to feel just how damp his clothes had been. He grabbed the bottom of his shirt and pulled it taught to inspect. A bright, red stain the size of a £2 coin adorned the bottom edge of Phil’s yellow shirt. He lifted it further to check his skin for the source. He found nothing. No scratches, cuts, or bug bites that would have produced a bleed. His eyes drifted further down his body, stopping on a smaller blood stain on the belt of his underwear. After another panicked inspection of the skin of his waist turned up no culprit, Phil searched through his memory to find the blood’s source.

The night before had been normal. After Dan finished his tea, Phil washed Dan’s mug, brushed his teeth, and changed into his pajamas the same way he did every night before he curled up around Dan.

_No._

To the tune of the microwave beeping with the forgotten breakfast, Phil ran back to his and Dan’s room. He turned on the lights, weary that it might startle Dan. Phil came around to his side of the bed, carefully undoing the tucked blanket he had secured under Dan. Phil tried his hardest not to disturb him as he lifted the duvet. As Dan’s back became uncovered, Phil failed to find any visible stains trapped in the black clothes Dan had worn to sleep.

“Dan,” Phil called as he made his way around to the other side of the bed. He took a seat beside Dan. “Sweetie. Wake up.”

After a gentle shake, Dan’s eyes drifted open and swiftly shut as he took in the light. “What?” Dan asked, rubbing his eyes.

“Don’t panic,” Phil said.

Dan shot up in bed. “What? What’s wrong?”

“How are you feeling?” Phil asked.

“How am I—what? What’d you mean how am I feeling?”

“Do you feel any better than you did last night?”

Dan shook his head. “I’m still sore. Why, though? You’re really scaring me.”

“Honey,” Phil said as he stood, displaying his shirt, “I think you bled on me while we slept.”

Dan’s jaw fell open as he whipped the sheet off himself. He stuck his hand down his shorts and returned with a handful of thick, red and purple blood. His face swelled with flush instantaneously as his brain comprehended the blood before his eyes. His skin felt like it was going to burst.

“Oh, God!” Dan shrieked. “What do I do? What do I do?” he asked, words rapid with terror. “This can’t—can’t—” he said before a fit of hyperventilation.

Phil had no idea what either of them should have done. A&E was the obvious answer, but how would they get there? Not like this. Not in this condition. Phil asked himself if they should get changed first. _Fuck our clothes. I have to calm Dan down._

The task was easier said than done.

“Tell me what to do!” Dan screamed.

In the moments Phil had taken to think, he had neglected to spot Dan becoming inconsolable. Dan’s anger was the result of that neglect.

Phil stuttered incoherently before he could answer. “Uh, just, uh, wash—wash up, and then I’ll take you to hospital.”

Dan nodded as he swung his legs over the edge of the bed and stood. The second he was upright he felt the gush of blood that had been trapped inside of him as he laid horizontally dribble out between his legs. Phil rushed to his side when he heard Dan groan. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m leaking!”

Phil shook his head as he placed his hand on Dan’s shoulder. “I’ll be right back,” he said as they entered their bathroom. “Clean yourself as best as you can.”

Dan nodded as he reached for the knob on the sink and turned on the warm water.

Phil ran back to their bedroom and headed straight for the dresser. He picked out a clean shirt, a pair of boxers, and some sweatpants; the loosest and softest clothes that he could find. Less than a minute later, he returned to the bathroom.

Dan had been a crying mess on the toilet with blood dripping down his arms. It had gotten everywhere before he gave up on his pursuit to wash himself. Droplets were left behind in every forgotten corner of the room. Smudges on every countertop and handle. Smears between Dan’s thighs that ran all the way down to his knees.

“Honey, do you need help?” Phil asked. He placed the clean clothes beside the sink.

Dan didn’t answer. He just kept wailing.

Phil had never seen him this way. So engaged with his emotions. So unreachable. It was as if he was stuck in a loop of time, doomed to dwell there until Phil intervened. Phil had never been more detached from his fear. It wouldn’t have helped anyone in that moment. All he knew was that Dan was bleeding. He couldn’t come to the same conclusions as Dan because he didn’t have all the facts. Time was still on their side.

“I’m going to clean you, okay?” Phil said before he stepped out to grab a towel from the closet down the hall.

He returned, white towel in hand, and ran it under the tap. He stooped down to Dan’s level and began scrubbing the blood off his hands and arms. Dan let it happen, knowing that he didn’t have enough strength in his body to do it himself.

“I’m going to clean your legs, alright?”

Dan nodded.

With hands that tried to be as minimally invasive as possible, Phil wiped down the skin of Dan’s upper thighs, moving up to his groin. From between Dan’s legs, Phil could see globs of blood sliding down into the lowest point of the toilet.

“Let’s get you changed so we can go,” Phil said as he stood and reached for the clothes.

“No,” Dan said, finally breaking free from his brokenhearted trance. “No, I remember. The doctor said to call first. Sh-she said only to go to A&E if they didn’t answer.”

Phil hummed with uncertainty.

“Please! Just go get my phone. Call Dr. Muller, and she’ll tell us what to do.”

“Are you sure?” Phil asked Dan with his eyes.

The determination—the avoidance—in Dan’s face was too intense for Phil to oppose. The pain opened Dan’s mouth; giving him an overbite as he bore down on his teeth. Saline tears dripped into that open mouth. Phil couldn’t let that happen for any longer. He jogged to Dan’s bedside table to retrieve Dan’s mobile. When he returned, he held the phone at Dan’s eye level, so the face-ID could unlock it.

“She’s in my contacts,” Dan said.

Phil found the doctor’s number in the contacts app and dialed the office. He put the call on speaker so Dan could hear what was being said.

The horrible trill of the phone cued Dan’s pulse to beat like a gong in his ears. With every shrill beep, he could hear his heart expand and contract. If the office didn’t answer, he would insist that Phil ring them again until they did pick up. He had zero desire to leave the apartment that morning to be poked for blood and probed with an ultrasound just so the doctors could tell him what he already knew.

After twenty seconds of waiting, the receptionist finally picked up, giving Dan a split second of peace.

“Hello,” the woman greeted, “London Centre for Obstetrics and Mascaecology. How may I help you.”

“Hi,” Phil said. “My husband woke up this morning, bleeding. He’s about seven weeks along.”

“Okay,” the woman said. “Can your husband come to the phone for me?”

“He can, but he’s very distressed. I think he’d like me to do the talking.”

“That’s fine,” the woman said. “Please, just let me confirm that he’s there.”

Phil brought the phone to Dan’s mouth.

“Hello?” Dan asked, doubling over in his seat.

“Yes, love. You’re bleeding?”

“Yeah,” Dan said.

“Okay. Are you a patient with us?”

“Yes. My name is Daniel Howell Lester. I’ve seen Dr. Muller.”

“Great. Let me search you up.” For a few seconds the only sounds coming from the other end were the clicks of the woman’s fingers on her keyboard. “Daniel, you’re in our system. Can you please confirm for me your date of birth?”

“11 June 1991.”

“Perfect! You can hand the phone back to your husband if you’d like.”

Phil retracted the phone. “Hello?”

“Yes. Dr. Muller is free at the moment, so I will transfer you over to her.”

Phil thanked the receptionist before a few seconds of dead air passed between the phones, and Dr. Muller answered.

“This is Dr. Wilhelmina Muller.”

“Hello. This is Phil Lester. My husband is Daniel.”

“Oh, yes! Daniel. I remember you two from his ultrasound confirmation appointment. Has something gone wrong?”

“Yes,” Phil said. “This morning he’s started bleeding.”

“Oh, no!” Dr. Miller said. “Can you describe the blood for me?”

“It’s uh… red?” Phil said, unaware of the mood-ring-like conclusions that could be drawn from the answer he gave. “There’s a lot of it.”

“Is he in pain?”

“Yes, all day yesterday, he had a backache and an upset stomach. He had quite a bit of morning sickness, too.”

Dr. Muller sent an almost imperceivable gust of air over her microphone. Phil still picked up on it. “The symptoms you’ve just described to me are consistent with a miscarriage,” Dr. Muller informed. Her tone was flat, allowing no room for hope or pity. “Having said that, there’s no way I can tell for sure at this point, so I’ll have to schedule him an appointment in a few days. I’m booked solid until Wednesday. Does that sound alright?”

Phil turned to Dan who was utterly unphased by the prognosis.

“Sure. That sounds fine.”

“Okay. I’ll put him down for Wednesday. In the meantime, you and Dan will want to be vigilant. Is he there?”

“I’m here!” Dan shouted.

“Hello, Daniel. I know it might be hard to concentrate, but I need you to follow my instructions. Daniel, I’m placing you on pelvic rest, okay? That means nothing inserted into the rectum. I want you to monitor your bleeding. Clots and pieces of tissue are common. Track how many pads you go through. If you can soak multiple in one hour, I need you to go straight to A&E, okay? The pain you’re experiencing right now is only going to increase. It will become comparable to severe menstrual cramps. If it becomes unbearable, go to A&E. You can take over-the-counter pain relief, just no aspirin or other blood thinners. What else? Watch for signs of infection like fever, pallor, and dizziness. Drink plenty of water. I don’t want you getting dehydrated. And no strenuous activity, okay?”

“Okay,” Dan said.

“Daniel, how are you feeling?” she asked.

“I… don’t know,” Dan said.

“Do not be afraid to ask for help. You are a healthy, responsible man. This was not your fault. Nature sometimes acts in cruel ways. Do either of you have any questions for me?”

Dan shook his head.

“Yes, actually,” Phil said. “Do you know what might have caused this?”

The doctor sighed again. “Well, it’s impossible to say with any certainty but I can offer you my speculations. Carrying males are at an increased risk of having babies with chromosomal abnormalities that simply cannot produce viable life. Other times, it has to do with the Rhesus blood groups of the parents. If I remember correctly from Dan’s charts, his blood type is A+. If you’re Rh-, and the baby inherited your blood type, Dan’s body could have had an immune response. In both cases, nothing could have been done to prevent the loss of pregnancy, unfortunately. It’s a good thing that you asked me that question because it reminds me to tell you to manage your expectations. There’s no guarantee that I’ll be able to provide you with an explanation of why this happened; especially if Daniel has already passed the embryonic sac. We may never know what caused this.”

“Okay. Thank you for your help,” Phil said.

“Thank you for calling. Is there anything else I can help you with?”

Dan asked for the phone with his hand, and Phil gave it to him. “One thing,” he said. “Will I need a fit note if I can’t go to work?”

“It depends. If you need more than seven days, I will certainly give you a fit note, but if you feel comfortable going back sooner than that, you can self-certify at your job. You can be as specific as you want,” Dr. Muller said. “You don’t have to tell them any details you don’t want to.”

“Thank you,” Dan whimpered as he handed the phone back to Phil.

“Alright. I’ll see you on Wednesday to confirm.”

“See you Wednesday,” Phil said.

“Goodbye.” She hung up.

Phil placed the phone on the counter and knelt back beside Dan.

“I’m so sorry,” he said as he held onto Dan’s calves.

Dan merely stared down at Phil, unable to speak as more tears fell from his eyes.

After nearly ten minutes, Phil finally insisted that Dan washed off properly. He couldn’t do anything to save their baby, but he could do everything in his power to protect Dan from infection.

The foul-smelling fluids dribbling out of Dan wasn’t enough to motivate him to bathe himself, so when Phil offered to wash him, he accepted his help. Phil tried his hardest to keep Dan’s gaze above the bathwater as he cleaned Dan with mild soap and a washcloth. The wisps of blood were suspended all around Dan, and the heavier cloths sunk to the bottom of the tub.

Dan leaned back in the bath, catatonic eyes still leaking passively. His only movements were in harmony with whatever part of his body Phil was cleaning and his involuntary breath. He had never felt so useless.

Once Phil had finished cleaning Dan, he helped him out of the tub and gave him a fresh towel to dry off with before leaving him alone to change while he ran back to the dresser to bring Dan a pair of socks.

“Thank you,” Dan said as he accepted the socks from Phil. By then, he had been completely clothed, and only a stuffy nose remained as evidence of his crying. It was only a matter of time before he started back up again. “I’m almost out of pads,” Dan said as he leaned forward to slip on his socks, one at a time.

“Do you want me to get you some more?”

Dan nodded.

“Okay, I’ll see if Harry or Louis can come stay with you while I run to the pharmacy.”

Dan shook his head. “You don’t trust me to be alone?” he asked.

“It’s not that I don’t trust you, I just don’t think anyone going through what you’re going through should have to do it by themself for even a second. How about I ask one of them to bring you what you need.”

“They don’t need to know yet,” Dan said, leading Phil out of the bathroom and into their bedroom. He got back under the covers and buried himself in the blankets.

“I really don’t want to leave you, Dan.”

“I’m not gonna kill myself, if that’s what you’re thinking. I’d never do that to you,” Dan said. “I just want some time to myself, okay? That’s the way I’ve always been. You know that.”

Phil nodded. Dan bringing up suicide let Phil know that the idea had come up, but he believed him when he said it wasn’t an option. They had been in situations like this before where Dan had asked for solitude against Phil’s wishes to stay and help. The situation usually got better after he gave in and left Dan alone. Dan was too fragile to continue the argument, so Phil relented, trusting that Dan knew what was best for himself.

“I’m going to change, and then I’ll walk over to the pharmacy,” Phil said.

“Thank you.”

Phil’s jogging turned shaved three minutes off what normally was a 15-minute-long walk to the pharmacy. If it weren’t for the damned traffic lights stopping him every block, he would have gotten there sooner. Once he was inside the shop, he grabbed himself a hand basket and headed straight for the aisle once labeled “Feminine Hygiene.” In the new “Menstrual Supply,” department, Phil searched for the most absorbent pads they sold. On a number of occasions, Dan had asked Phil to check his trousers to see if he was leaking while wearing everyday pads, and Phil couldn’t have Dan worrying about trivial matters like that that day.

In a rush to get home, Phil nearly finished his shopping until he remembered the doctor’s words to Dan about how the experience would be similar to an intense period. Pads weren’t the only items Dan needed when he was having a period, so Phil searched around the shop for some more essentials.

Chocolate. Even when he wasn’t bleeding, chocolate always seemed to cheer Dan up. Phil opted for the dark variety, figuring the milk and sugar in the lighter chocolates would upset Dan’s stomach even more. Lavender oil. In attempts to holistically ease his anxiety, Dan had experimented with lavender essential oil in the past, and the scent managed to calm him down. Conveniently enough, Phil found a 200 ml bottle of lavender pillow spray. It was perfect, considering that Dan would most likely be bed-bound for the next few days. An electric heating pad. Dan had only ever used the single-use heaters that barely fit in the palm of his hand. The electric heater that Phil had bought could easily cover Dan’s entire abdomen or back. A Winnie the Pooh stuffed animal. It was irresistibly cute. It made Phil smile, and he knew it would have the same effect on Dan; especially since Dan grew up on the books and animations.

Down £50, Phil left the pharmacy carrying everything he had bought in two separate bags. He returned to the apartment, out of breath after having jogged all the way back as well. He let himself in and called for Dan as he entered their room.

“Hey, Dan,” Phil said before he noticed that all the lights had been turned off and the shades had been drawn shut. On his side of the bed, Dan laid, curled in on himself and wrapped up in the duvet. “Oh, shit! I didn’t mean to wake you.”

Dan shook his head. “I wasn’t asleep yet,” he said through his blocked nose. He freed his arm from under the blanket to rub his eye. “I’ve been trying.”

“Aw, okay. Before you start again, do you want to see what presents I got you?” Phil asked.

“You got me presents?”

Phil nodded and revealed each item to Dan. Dan was unspeakably grateful for everything that Phil had bought—especially the Pooh Bear, but he was too distracted by his pain and sadness to let Phil know.

The power outlet beside the bed allowed Phil to plug in the heating pad. “Sit up for me,” Phil requested.

Dan listened, emerging from his blankets and propping himself up on his pillows. Even the slightest movements sent ripples of electricity through the muscles in his core. In the time that Phil had left, the pain had grown exponentially. He had barely been up and moving around for five minutes, but he was already experiencing contractions that were as bad as his worst menstrual cramps. When he finally settled into a comfortable position, he let out a sigh and closed his eyes.

Phil pulled the bottom of Dan’s shirt over the exposed skin of Dan’s stomach, bidding it farewell in case it was the last time he would ever see his bump. He gifted it a parting kiss with his eyes. With the thin piece of fabric to act as a barrier, Phil placed the heater over Dan’s middle and turned it on to its middle setting. “How’s that?” he asked Dan.

Dan nodded, placing his hand over the pad.

“Do you need anything else? Any food or pain killers?”

Dan shook his head. “I’m not hungry, and I already took two pain pills,” he said, voice low with an agitated growl. “I took some melatonin too. I think I just need to sleep through the pain.”

Phil nodded. “Sounds like a good idea.” He stood at the foot of their bed, watching his husband as he tried to rest, not wanting to upset the environment that Dan had curated in his absence. “Can I lay down with you?” he asked.

“If you want.”

With Dan’s permission, Phil took his spot on his side of the bed and got cozy under the sheets. Phil grabbed a pillow and held it in place of Dan. For nearly thirty minutes Phil laid beside Dan with his eyes shut, stomach grumbling at the thought of the breakfast he didn’t dare leave Dan again to eat, and brain wandering in sorrowful circles. Even if he hadn’t woken up from a full nights rest only an hour before he tried to fall back asleep, the emotion in his chest was enough to bar him from sleep.

Through no fault of his own or Dan, their child was dead for no good reason. Their would-be-first born, wedding night, baby would never exist. They would never take their first steps or have play-dates with their friends. They would never audition for the school play or beg him and Dan to let them colour their hair unnatural hues. They would never know just how much love he and Dan had to offer them. It ruined Phil.

Near the end of that half-hour, Phil had to set his feelings aside once again and tend to Dan. His breathing had quickened, and his hands were balled into fists. At first, the whines Dan let out were muffled by his pursed lips. By the end of the motion, Dan was too afflicted to prevent his unbridled cries from ripping through the silent room.

“What’s wrong?” Phil asked, darting upright.

“It hurts so bad!” Dan explained through a sob. “It just comes and goes without warning. And you think it’s done but it’s not, and I fucking hate it!”

Phil pouted at Dan’s agony. “What can I do for you?” he asked.

“You can’t do fucking anything for me!” Dan yelled.

“Baby,” Phil said as he came closer to Dan and reached for his hand. “Baby.”

“Don’t call me that!”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Your heart is probably beating out of control right now, I bet.”

Dan nodded.

“Well, then let’s fix that. Breathe in your nose and out through your mouth.”

Dan did as he was told, huffing breaths in and out of his lungs which trembled in tandem with his hands. “I can’t do this.” His voice shook.

“You’re gonna have to,” Phil said. “It’s unfair, I know. It might even seem pointless knowing that we might never get an explanation for why this happened.”

All the muscles in Dan’s face relaxed and he opened his eyes as the pain let up. “This happened for a reason,” he said.

“Well, sure. There’s definitely some medical explanation for this, but Like the doctor said—”

“No. More than that,” Dan said. “Maybe the universe is telling me that I can’t handle something like this.”

“Dan!” Phil shook his head, unable to handle Dan’s usual cynicism on top of everything else. “Don’t start up with that.”

“It never stops, Phil! From the moment I found out I was pregnant, there has been this voice in my head, telling me that I’d made the biggest mistake of my life.”

“What we did wasn’t a mistake. You loved our baby.”

“Oh my God, Phil! Would you just shut up and listen to me? It was inside of me! I had one job, and I fucked it up so bad that it’s all over. You will never understand what that feels like!”

Phil nodded, appreciating Dan’s perspective. His appreciation didn’t negate the tears dripping from his eyes or the sting of frustration in his throat. “You’re right,” Phil said, “I won’t ever know what that feels like. But you can understand what I’m feeling”—Phil stood from the bed—”It was my baby too, so don’t act like you’re the only one who gets to be sad!”

The anger of invalidation propelled Phil out of their room and into the kitchen. He felt rotten knowing that he had brought out such vile feelings in Dan. He had never seen him so offended. So resentful. In all their years together, Phil had never managed to actually hurt Dan, but his clean streak had ended that morning.

Just as Phil reached for the microwave handle, he heard Dan’s voice throughout the apartment.

“Get out,” Dan said. “I don’t care where you go, just leave me the fuck alone.”

***

“You did not say that to him!” Harry shouted as he poured Phil a cup of coffee.

Phil turned to Louis for understanding, but instead, he only found a grimace.

“It was my baby too?” Harry asked. “But is it coming out of your body?”

“No! I know!”

“Do you have to worry about taking your fucking folic acid so your baby's spine doesn't fall out it's back? Huh? Are you gonna gain a stone or two to bring the kid into this world?”

“No! And I was an idiot for even suggesting that my pain is anywhere near Dan’s.”

“Then why have you come all the way over here? For pity?”

“Hazza!” Louis said, “Calm down.”

Harry took a deep breath. “You’re right,” he said, using the back of his hand to wipe the remaining tears he had cried at the news of Dan and Phil’s loss. “I’m a bit sensitive right now. It’s the uh, you know.”

Phil nodded.

“So what’s the plan? Do you want me to go over to your place and talk to him?” Harry asked.

“Actually,” Phil said, shaking his head, “Neither of you are supposed to know about this. Dan specifically said that he didn’t want to share this with anyone yet.”

Harry scoffed, bringing all of his hair to the left side of his neck. “Great. Let me brush my teeth, and then I’ll head over to do some damage control,” he said, pouring the rest of his coffee into the sink before he walked over to his bathroom and got himself ready to leave.

After grabbing himself a portable snack and walking over to Dan and Phil’s apartment, Harry stood on their welcome mat, fearing that Phil had locked him out, and his ringing the doorbell would pull Dan away from the rest that he was trying to get. The door opened with a lucky turn of the handle, and Harry’s faith that Phil hadn’t been a total idiot that day was restored.

“Dan?” Harry called into the apartment. The dwelling was dark and humid like a bat cave. Harry even thought he heard his voice echo off the walls. “Dan, it’s Harry.”

“Yeah?” Dan responded from his bed.

“Hey, sunflower,” he said as he leaned against the bedroom doorframe.

“Hey,” Dan croaked, voice thickened by the mucous in his throat. “What are you doing here?”

“I felt a disturbance in the force,” Harry said. “Can I come in?”

Dan nodded, and Harry walked over to the windows. He threw the curtains open, inviting in the light that Dan had taken every precaution to shut out. Harry came over to Dan’s side and leaned over to kiss his cheek. “I am immensely sorry for your loss,” Harry said as he pressed the side of his face against Dan’s.

Dan melted under Harry’s hand on his jaw. The scent of the cherries, the kiwifruit, and the strawberries on Harry’s breath—a late-summer fruit salad that Harry had eaten on his walk over to the apartment—filled Dan with a lust for Harry’s symptoms. His cravings. Clinical signs that Harry still had his baby.

“Phil came over just now,” Harry said as he took a seat at the end of Dan’s bed.

“I could kill that man right now,” Dan grumbled.

"He loves you. He’s just… confused. He’s hurting. As I’m sure you are, too.”

Dan nodded, lowering the levee in his eyes that held back the constant stream of tears.

“I know you didn’t want me to know, but I didn’t exactly have a choice in the matter either.”

“He just doesn’t know when to stop talking. I’m perfectly fine just sitting here and bleeding out.”

Harry shook his head. “You’re clearly not fine, though! Do you at least want to talk about it? I’ll just let you vent if you’d like.”

“I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to talk about Phil either. I just want him here, and I want him to be quiet.”

“The only way you get Phil lying beside you again is by talking. Talk to me first,” Harry said. “Get all your terrible thoughts out of your system, then talk to Ph—”

“I want to hear about you. How are you doing? Tell me about your baby.”

Harry shook his head. If he gave in and let Dan avoid his own feelings, he knew that Dan would spend the next eight months being his surrogate midwife. “You don’t want to hear about all that.”

“I do.”

Harry sighed, giving in only to get the conversation started. “Well, it’s crazy to think that a person the size of a pomegranate seed now dictates my life.”

Dan chuckled soberly. Even that hurt.

Harry brought his hand up to his face, fingers grazing over the spots on his forehead he had to use every ounce of his self-control not to pick at. “I mean, yuh-you were farther along than I am, so I don’t need to remind you of how glamorous the first trimester is. I’m breaking out all over my face. My tits hurt. Uh, what else? Oh, my god! My body’s fast-tracked the morning sickness. I’ve been dealing with that. Sustaining myself on the B.R.A.T. diet. Have you heard of that?” Harry asked.

Dan nodded. “Bananas, rice, applesauce, and toast?”

“Yup,” Harry said. He looked down at his stomach, mindlessly running his hand over his still-flat flesh. “Nearly anything else comes back up.” The expression on Dan’s face when Harry looked back up was that of desperate envy, so he tried to change the subject. “My mood’s been all over the place lately.” He snickered with regret. “I gave Phil an earful when I heard what he had said to you.”

“Thank you." The safety Dan found in Harry’s gentle smile granted him the comfort he needed to open up in the ways he had sworn off just moments before. “The day I told Phil that I was pregnant, we had the longest conversation. We played the cruelest game ever. ‘What if our baby has a heart defect?’ ‘What if our baby has chromosomal issues or autism?’ It was more an exercise for me. I needed to hear him tell me that even if things didn’t turn out as we planned, it would be okay. So for hours, we went back and forth, offering each other these tragic hypotheticals and doing research. I made him cry with some of my questions. ‘What happens if I go into labour, and the doctors say that they can only save one of us?’ It was a rough conversation to have, and it ultimately made me feel better about everything, but never—not once during that conversation, did we bother to bring up this possibility. I think we knew that whatever birth defect or disability Baby Lester could’ve had would be a million times better than not having them at all.”

Harry nodded. Dan’s honesty had left him speechless. The stark difference between Dan and Phil’s perspective compared to his and Louis’ was alarming when Harry put them beside each other. Harry and Louis savoured every moment of the pregnancy. Even the bad ones. Deep down, Harry knew that Phil would be the same way if it wasn’t for Dan’s insecurity that forced him to face the possibility of challenge prematurely—or in some cases, not at all. It wasn’t Harry’s job to tell either of them that, however. Dan and Phil had to figure that out on their own.

“I think the hardest part of this is the intangibility of it all,” Dan said.

“What do you mean?”

“Like you just said, your whole life is now run by a person the size of a pomegranate seed. How fucking crazy is that? Something that small can ruin your day. Ruin your life.” Dan took a moment to calm himself down. “I will never get to meet them.”

“You will!” Harry assured. “One day, you will meet them somewhere far away from here. And they will be perfect.”

Dan didn’t protest. He merely rested his head back on his pillow and let Harry’s romantic words sooth him for a second before his brain took his calm and threw it into a blender. “Speaking of fantastical situations,” Dan started, “Phil and I were watching this documentary the other day about physics—or something. I don’t know. Phil loves his maths. Anyway, they got into talk about parallel universes and the idea that every possible outcome for any occurrence has happened, just in a different universe. By that logic there’s a universe where I give birth to a healthy baby, and the thought of that is really comforting to me.”

“That’s good to think about. Let that motivate you to eventually make that universe a reality,” Harry suggested.

“Yeah. It’s all rosy until I realized that, by the same logic, there’s another universe where I lost the baby at six weeks. And another where I lost them at eight. And another where I—do you see where I’m going here?”

“That’s your problem,” Harry said. “You spend every spare second fixating on the hypotheticals. It’s going to kill you, darling.”

“Well, there’s not much else to think about now that all the joy is gone from my life.” Dan sniffled.

“The only way you’re gonna get any of that joy back is by talking to Phil.”

Dan nodded. “You’re right.” He wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “You’re right. I’m just exhausted right now. My melatonin’s kicking in, and I need to get some sleep.”

“Okay,” Harry said as he stood from the bed. “I’ll give you a few hours to rest, and then, I’ll call Phil over. In the meantime, I’ll tidy up around here, and have some food ready for you when you wake up. How does that sound?”

“That sounds lovely,” Dan said. “Thank you.”

“Alright,” Harry said as he walked back over to the window to close the curtains.

“Oh,” Dan said, reaching out for Harry despite the great distance between them, “I’ve got to warn you; the bathroom looks straight out of a fucking Tarantino film.”

Harry nodded, bracing himself for the gore. Before he left Dan’s room, he bent over to pick up the clothes that Dan had left on the floor. He scooped up the corduroys and the familiar button-down shirt that Dan had worn the night before. Once he was in the hallway, he turned on the light and inspected the shirt’s print.

“Hey! I have this shirt!” Harry said, peeking his head back into Dan’s room.

Dan smiled. The only reason he had bought the top was because Harry once modeled it well.

“Goodnight,” Harry finally said before he closed the bedroom door behind himself.

***

Harry couldn’t bring himself to wake Dan after only three hours like he had promised. Dan was so peaceful as he slept, and the last thing Harry could have done was disturb the little peace in Dan’s life at the moment. So, he didn’t call Phil back home until Dan awoke on his own at a quarter past four. As they waited for Phil to walk back over, Harry prepared Dan a hearty sandwich, suspecting that it was the first and possibly the only thing that Dan would eat that day.

To Harry’s delight, Dan insisted that he ate at the table, sitting upright. He laughed at the jokes Dan made about getting bedsores, knowing that humor helped Dan get through hard times. He watched Dan scarf down the sandwich through his cramps like a champion until there was a knock at the front door, and Phil arrived with Louis as his walking companion. Harry left Dan with a parting hug before he joined Louis outside.

“Hey,” Phil said as he entered the apartment and took a seat beside Dan.

“Hey,” Dan said. “I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you, too.” Phil reached for Dan’s hand on the table. “How are you doing? How’s the bleeding?”

“It’s under control.”

Phil nodded. Just looking at Dan made Phil remember the horrified faces he caused. He couldn’t stand to look at him for very much longer without releasing a few tears. “I’m so sorry for putting you through this. I’ve never done this before. I don’t know what I’m doing.”

Dan nodded, beginning to share in Phil’s tears.

“When I was small, my dad used to sit me at the front of his bicycle and ride me around the neighborhood and all up the hills.” Phil stopped to take a deep breath. “I grew up to realize that those bike rides were the best moments of my childhood, and I’ve waited my whole life to do the same with my son or daughter. And my little outburst, my lapse in comfort, was my refusal to accept that it’s gonna take longer for me to get there. That’s all it was. It doesn’t mean that I don’t value everything you’ve done for me, or that I can’t be sympathetic to what’s going on. It was just a moment of selfishness that I will spend every second of the rest of my life trying not to repeat.”

“Thank you so much for admitting that,” Dan said. “I wanted to apologize for my behaviour this morning. As natural as it was, I can see how my… dramatics might have scared you.”

Phil nodded. “I’m in an odd spot as the observing father, you know. I can’t do anything to help grow the baby, so I feel like I have to do everything I can to protect them and you.”

“Well,” Dan said, “I think we both learned, today, that some things are just out of our control.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See you tomorrow...


	9. IX

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Word Count: 4708  
> Reading Time: 17 minutes 7 seconds

**26 August 2019**

“Daniel!” Dominic squealed at the top of his lungs. He was so loud that the people working outside of their room turned their heads to see what the racket was about.

“Dom,” Dan said as he placed his belongings—a reusable water bottle and his cross-body bag—on the seat of his desk chair. Working with Dominic was what Dan needed to get his life back on track, he and Phil both agreed. The day before marked his ninth day in bed. Of eating only what Phil had prepared for him. Of taking less than eight hundred steps. Of bleeding. Of spending at least an hour or more deciding whether or not to take a shower. Dan was sure that if his veins weren’t still clouded with prenatal estrogen and progesterone he would have definitely been able to grow a beard with how little he cared to groom himself. That last Monday in August had been the first time in over a week that Dan had left the house, and he was excited to start reintegrating into the world. _But goddamn! _It was only eight o’clock, and Dominic’s voice sounded like the screech of high-velocity tires against the road.__

Dominic removed his headphones as he stood and ran across the room to meet Dan. “You have no idea how lonely this office has been without you,” he said as he pulled Dan into a deep embrace.

“I’ve missed you, too,” Dan said.

Dominic had only ever hugged Dan that thoroughly twice before. Limited experience aside, he could tell that something was different. He had never heard Dan’s voice so soft; never felt it resonate so deeply in Dan’s chest. _Is this how he naturally talks? _It was almost as if Dan was too tired to keep up his every day, hunky-dory persona, and he was being totally authentic.__

“How’ve you gotten on without me?” Dan asked, releasing Dominic.

“Alright, man. I’ve done some writing and some brainstorming. Sent some emails.” Dominic wandered back to his desk.

Dan nodded, eyes scanning the room. “I see you’ve done some redecorating.”

“Yup! Do you like it?” Dominic asked.

The EEN gave Dominic and Daniel their own studio space for their project that had been officially named “The Dom and Dan Show,” while Dan was away. Dan wondered what happened to Dominic’s, “Black Hearts Club,” but he couldn’t muster enough bother to ask about it. The last time he was in their studio, Dan had claimed the desk along the Eastern wall while Dominic took the one in the West. In the centre of the room, their camera and lighting equipment had been set up to face the Southern wall. The room’s door remained on the Northern wall. Since coming back, Dan found that Dominic had moved his desk to the corner adjacent to his. He liked that they would no longer be back to back. Dominic had formed a set in the South-Eastern corner out of two, structured bean bag chairs (one black and the other pink), a low-standing coffee table where their microphones rested, and a string of iridescent garland that hung between the two seats on the wall.

“It’s…” Dan started, letting the change disorient him. “We’ll definitely get some flattering camera angles with the furniture being this low to the ground.”

“You hate it,” Dominic said as he took a seat at his desk. “Great.”

“I don’t hate it."

“It’s fine. What we have is a start. Angelika, the set designer, will swing by later. She’ll definitely help us out.”

“Did you do anything else?”

Dominic turned to Dan, staring at him with a smile through pursed lips. “Like I said, I started brainstorming and emailing people.”

“Emailing whom?” Dan asked.

“People.”

“You haven’t done shit, have you?” Dan forced a laugh to let Dominic know that he wasn’t upset with him. That day, his capacity for complaint didn’t extend to Dominic.

Sure, his former self had done his best to provide Dominic with the tools he needed to be productive and focused at the start of their first week of working together. Dan had gifted Dominic with a planner to keep track of all their fast-approaching deadlines. He accepted Dominic’s habits of tapping, humming, and listening to music as he worked, which weren’t always conducive to his own work-style. He let Dominic choose which parts of their work that he was most interested in, and he removed all proverbial bright-and-shiny objects from the room. He wasn’t pleased to see that the structure he tried to enforce had collapsed, but he wasn’t going to lose sleep over it, either. He would do his work with Dominic, go home, and sleep soundly, because sleep was one of the few remaining things that brought him joy.

Dan placed his water bottle on his desk and set his bag on the floor before he sat in his rolling chair and wheeled himself over to Dominic’s desk. Dom opened his planner, presenting to Dan the list of tasks he had completed. Dan looked over the pages of Dominic’s penmanship: line after line of thin, right-leaning words. Evenly spaced with tails on the ends of every t, a, i, l, and m. With curved Y’s rather than pointed Y’s with large, dramatic hooks that didn’t carry over to his lowercase g’s, for some reason. Dan couldn’t help but be embarrassed at his own illegible script; even though he had never had reason to put pen to paper in front of Dominic.

“So, here are all the contacts I’ve made,” Dominic said as he opened the Sent folder of his work email. “I carbon copied you, so you might have seen them already.”

Dan laughed dryly. “Yeah, no. I haven’t checked my email in over a week.”

“I had a feeling that was the case, because if you had checked, I think you’d’ve shit your pants.” Dan squinted in confusion as Dominic leaned back in his seat, folding his arms proudly. “Go on”—he bobbed his head in the direction of his computer mouse—”have a look.”

Dan reached for the mouse and clicked on the messages that Dominic had starred.

_Dominic and Daniel,_

_Sounds like a plan!_

_Thank you_

The email contained the signature of a talent agent along with his company’s official letterhead.

“We got a celebrity interview?” Dan asked, feeling a shower of excitement wash over him. “Who?”

Dominic nodded. “Start from the bottom.”

Dan’s fingers couldn’t scroll fast enough. When he finally reached Dominic’s first message, his eyes expanded to read the words that fulfilled one of his greatest teenage wishes.

Good morning Mr. Reynolds!

My name is Dominic Harrison. My associate, Daniel Howell, and I are the hosts of a new podcast on the EEN Online Sect. … As music is a great element of our show, we would love to schedule an interview with your client Matt Bellamy.

“Oh my fucking God!” Dan shouted as he reached for Dominic’s shoulders to shake him. “This is literally the best thing that has happened to me all week! Thank you.”

Dominic took Dan’s jostling in stride as he joined in Dan’s noise. “See, mate. I didn’t fookin’ lie to you! I was emailing people.”

Dan nodded, now recognizing that what he had interpreted as bashful deception was in fact just the buildup to a great surprise. “That’s best friend material right there!” Dan said pointing to the computer monitor.

Dominic raised his eyebrows in shock. He had only known Dan for just over two weeks, and they were already best friends, apparently. He loved the idea, he just thought it was strange considering how close Dan was to Harry. On second thought, Dominic suspected that Dan’s attachment style might have been what permitted such a relationship. When lunch came around, he planned to ask how Harry was doing if he remembered.

At the peak of their shared high, a fist rapped against their office door.

“Come in,” Dominic shouted, and a group of coworkers entered the room.

Chris Kendall—the host of the pop charts radio show that ran from two o’clock to six o’clock—holding a “Get well soon,” balloon. Dorothy Clark—an intern friend of Dominic’s that Dan only knew of because of the joke Dominic once made about being a “Friend of Dorothy”—with a paper plate covered in cling film. And Louise Pentland—one of Phil’s analyst friends he and Dan used to go out for drinks with before she had her daughter—baring a modest bouquet of white lilies and eucalyptus leaves. The eclectic triad was proof of the EEN’s tight-knit community of employees.

Dan’s morning sickness had stopped on the 17th, but the group—that balloon—made Dan’s stomach turn as if he was still in the thick of it.

_They know._

“Hey buddy!” Chris said as he walked over to Dan, leading the rest of the Welcome-Back-Wagon. He opened his arms and met Dan in a hug.

Dan rose to his feet and walked over to his friend on reluctant legs. He let Chris catch him with a hug before Chris handed him his balloon, and he offered him a soulless, “Thank you,” in return. To add insult to injury, Chris and Dorothy had been smiling.

“Hey Dan!” Dorothy said with a shy little wave. “I heard about what happened from Dom, and I wanted to make you a brownie. Dom said you like chocolate, right?”

Dan nodded as he accepted the plate and dispensed more tired gratitude.

“So what was your op for again?” Dorothy asked.

“Op?” Dan turned back to face Dominic, who had been trying to hide behind his faded, pink fringe.

“Yeah,” Chris said. “When I stopped by to wish you a goodbye from radio about a week ago, Dom said you had some sort of issue with your intestines or your bowel, or something. You had to have surgery for it, right?”

Just over Chris’ shoulder, Dan could see Louise hanging back behind the others. Her straight posture and her polite, insightful smile told Dan that she was the only person who actually knew why he was out sick. If it had to be one of them, Dan was glad it was Louise.

“Uh, yeah,” Dan said before he sputtered out a lie he stole from some medical drama. “I-uh was having an issue with my-uh tooth, right. So I wasn’t chewing my food properly, and all the, uh, large bits of food caused a blockage in my… stomach.”

“Yeesh! That sounds like a world of trouble,” Chris said as he patted Dan on the shoulder. “Well, I better get back to work.”

“Me too,” Dorothy said. “I hope your recovery is smooth.”

“Yup, hope you feel better soon!”

And with that, the only remaining visitor was Louise. “Oh, Daniel,” she said as she placed the bouquet on Dan’s desk and met Dan with a warm hug. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

Sympathy had never affected Dan the way it had when he was confronted by Louise. A recollection of the Great British Bake-off Harry had hosted just a couple of weeks before brought up a statement that Dan had only thought of in passing. He knew that his journey to fatherhood would change him. He just hadn’t expected the change to come as soon and in the fashion that it did.

“Before you go beat up your mate, I’ll let you know that it was Phil who told me,” Louise said.

Dan nodded, not feeling the bite of the unauthorized disclosure that he would have felt had this all happened a few weeks before. Even if his depression hadn’t desensitized him to many feelings, Dan trusted Louise. He knew she meant no harm.

“Thank you,” Dan said, meaning it this time. “The flowers are lovely.” He beheld Louise’s thoughtfulness in adhering to flower etiquette. Red roses for romance. Blue hydrangeas for gratitude. White lilies for loss.

“I know how hard it can be to start a family,” Louise said, “and I want to let you know that this doesn’t have to be the end for you and Phil. Follow wherever your hearts lead you."

Dan nodded, hoping that the motion would fling his tears back into his eyes. “Here I go again.” He dried his cheeks. “So weepy, lately.”

 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _“________________ That’s just fine,” Louise said. “Call me if you ever need anything.”

Dan’s head jittered, but thankfully Louise perceived it as a nod. Before Dan lost his composer completely, Louise turned her back to him and left the room. He took a minute to catch his breath where he stood, raising a hand to run across his scalp to then rest at the nape of his neck.

“Dan,” Dominic called. “I’m sorry. They were asking where you were—why I had the office to myself—and, they wouldn't have believed me if I said you were on holiday again, and—”

“Thank you,” Dan said, inhaling deeply to clear his sinuses. “I don’t know what I would have done if all three of them came at me with their pity.” He turned around, heading for his desk. “I’m gonna go powder my nose,” he announced before taking a quick sip of his water.

The trip across the online sect’s hive provided Dan with an opportunity to tour the parts of the office that were still unfamiliar to him. His shift from radio to online meant that every morning, he would be reporting to the 37th floor rather than the 20th. It meant being closer to Phil, whose equally-new office was just down the hall from The Dan and Dom show.

Dan tried not to make a spectacle of himself as he drifted through the common work area; arms folded and red-nosed. The pop of fingers against the keyboards provided him with something else to think about until he reached Phil’s room. Through the thin windows on either side of the door, Dan could see Phil sitting with two of his superiors. The look on Phil’s brow was strong and confident, like he could manage whatever problem they threw at him. It nearly comforted Dan until he realized that Phil was busy at the moment. It would have been totally unprofessional for Dan to barge in, demanding his husband’s attention.

And just like that, Dan’s spirit fell once more. If he couldn’t have Phil, he figured he’d just go back to Dom and spend the rest of his Dan holding in his feelings. That was what he had planned to do until, on his walk back, he spotted a sign on a door at the end of a perpendicular hallway that read, “Wellness Room :).” He hadn’t noticed it before, because the room had always been opened and the sign, out of sight. For years, Dan had heard rumors that the EEN had such a room for employees to take a break from their stresses and to rest after unexpected pains, but he never believed that the company was progressive enough to ever go through with it. Not especially after it leaked that the company had refused to accommodate their gender non-conforming employees with neutral, single-stall. bathrooms. But there the room was, and Dan had never needed it more.

With a newfound quickness in his legs, Dan walked down the hall to the room, but not before he looked over both shoulders to make sure that no one was watching. To his horror, when he tried to open the door, the handle stopped on its lock.

“Goddamnit!” he whispered, backing away from the door and accepting that he was just going to have to suck it up around Dominic.

Just as he pivoted on the heels of his shoes, he heard the lock click and the door open behind him.

“Did you want to come in?” A woman Dan recognized as Diviya Anthony asked, letting the door swing open. “I was just finishing up in here. I’ll be out in a second.”

Dan nodded.

“Come on in,” she said, making room for Dan to enter.

The room had been tight and cozy. The walls were covered in a dull yellow paper and devoid of the “Hang in there!” cat poster Dan was almost certain it would have. It saddened him even more at the lack of irony, but Diviya was still in the room, and Dan couldn’t let her know that. Before Dan took a seat at one of the two cushioned chairs, he was able to catch a glimpse of Divya’s rapid hands in the sink across the room. She had been mercilessly scrubbing the inside of a clear, plastic container with a sponge, and as Dan settled into the deep chair, she had begun rinsing it with clean water. She pulled a single paper towel from the dispenser on the wall and set it on the counter before placing all of her equipment on it to dry.

“She’s all yours,” Diviya said before bowing her head and walking toward the exit. “I’ll lock the door for you.”

“Thanks,” Dan managed to say as he watched Diviya press the button on the centre of the door handle to lock it before she left, closing it behind her.

Dan was terrified to be alone with his feelings, and his response to that fear was to not resist his tears. The cushy, snug décor of the room only served to make Dan claustrophobic, so he stood from the chair and walked over to the cabinet. The sight of the city below him over stimulated him, so instead he turned to the counter to lean on. Wrists bent against the edge of the surface, Dan curled his head towards his chest, hoping to remedy the density he felt there by releasing his quiet sobs. He did so successfully until he smelled the sweet, organic scent that still lingered in the sink. He looked up to find its source, rediscovering the items that Diviya had left behind: a bottle labeled with milliliter markers up the side, and a cone shaped topper. Dan knew exactly what it was. He knew exactly how Diviya had placed the device up to her breasts and squeezed the bottle to extract her own milk.

The equipment seemed to stare up at Dan, tormenting him with the same evil grin as the boys on the tube. _You will never need me, Dan, because you’ll never have a baby of your own to feed!_

Dan heaved breaths in and out of his lungs with panicked force. With every exhalation, Dan’s visioned blurred until he rested his head on the counter and tried to catch his breath.

***

“My mum came to visit me on Tuesday,” Dan said opening a packet of crisps. He searched for the largest one in the package to eat first.

“Aw, how sweet!” Dominic said. “Did she help you through it all?”

Dan nodded. “Naturally, we watched a lot of garbage TV together: Jeremy Kyle reruns, and I even showed her some Jerry Springer clips on YouTube. It was fun.”

Dominic snickered as he reached for his lunch bag and began unloading his food. “Me cousin was on Jeremy Kyle once. He might be incarcerated now.” Dominic scrunched up his nose. “Anyways, back to you and your mum.”

“Yeah. She pulled up a chair and sat beside my bed. She kinda made me feel like I was in hospital, even though I was at home, which kinda sucked. So did Harry. He visited me nearly every day, and not once did he sit or lay on the bed next to me.”

Dominic cackled. “Not me! The second you said you had Mario Kart, I was like ‘Move over Philly! The left side of the bed is mine now!’ "

Dan nodded, divulging his first genuine smile of the day. “You know, as close as I am to a lot of people who care for me, and as much as I know that they care, none of them made me feel as human as you did. Everyone else has changed their tone around me. They treat me like I’m some Fabergé egg. You have not changed the way you speak or the way you act for me, and I appreciate the hell out of that.”

The compliment meant the world to Dominic. “So,” Dominic asked with bits of the sandwich he had been eating fighting to jump out of his mouth, “how’s Harry doing?”

Dan shrugged, unable to stop staring at the webs of saliva clinging to Dominic’s teeth. “I don’t know, actually. We kinda aren’t speaking right now. Our friend from our old school is having his birthday on the 29th, so hopefully I’ll be able to make up with him at his party.”

“What?” Dominic asked, full lips drawn into a gasp. “What happened?”

Dan shuddered at the memories of that previous Friday. “Harry came to visit me while Phil was at work, and—”

***

“You’ll never believe what my mum told me yesterday,” Dan said, resting his bent arm over the edge of the sofa.

“What?” Harry asked. The excitement in Dan’s cheeks was angered and embarrassed, but at least it let Harry know that Dan was feeling things again.

“When I was pregnant, I used to call her whenever I had a new symptom to ask her questions, because she said to me a while ago that basically whatever happens to a mum in pregnancy has a high chance of happening to her child. Sure enough, we had a very similar experience. Morning sickness, sore chest, aversion to the smell of vinegar,” Dan listed.

“Uh-huh,” Harry said, finding himself in mirror of Dan’s posture.

“Apparently, she lost a baby early on, too!” Dan said.

Harry’s brow shriveled. “Oh my goodness! How sad.”

“It gets better. Before that, my grandma delivered a stillborn child.”

Even though he knew Dan’s use of the word “better,” was sarcastic, Harry couldn’t help but recoil as Dan shouted it.

“The family curse is seemingly losing patience. Phil’s and my children will be born infertile at this rate.”

Harry shook his head, knowing better than to encourage Dan’s argument by telling him not to talk like that. Keeping his feelings to himself would be hard but pushing Dan to tears would be harder. “So, your mum’s miscarriage was before you were born? Because it sounds to me like this is the first you’re hearing of it.”

“Nope. It happened when I was eight. They told me, and my mum said I was sad, but I don’t remember a goddamn thing!”

“Really?”

“Not a thing. If what she’s saying is true, it would explain why I was so subconsciously opposed to the idea of having children before we had our talk.”

“That makes sense,” Harry agreed. He couldn’t imagine how Mrs. Howell felt when Dan told her what happened to him.

“I could have had another sibling!” Dan said. “When my mum told me about all of this, I wasn’t mad that she had kept it for so long. Honestly, I plan to do the same with my future child. I was in disbelief. Sure, I had some nightmares about another brother or sister coming along and stealing my parents, but those were only fever dreams.”

“It sounds to me like you went through something so traumatic that you blocked it out of your memory to protect yourself,” Harry offered.

“I think you're right,” Dan said, slumping back down in the corner of the sofa to ease his soreness from sitting on his bottom. After that dreaded Saturday, the cramps had progressively dulled, especially after Dr. Muller had prescribed him pain medication the day before. Still, on his 6th day of bleeding, the tissue between his legs had been tender to the point of frustration. “Enough with all the doom and gloom. I’m sure what I’m saying only goes to scare you.”

Harry nodded. “I’ll hear whatever you need to get out.”

“Well, lucky for you, I’m done,” Dan said. “Let’s talk about you. You’re… six weeks along now, right?”

“I will be tomorrow,” Harry said before a moment’s hesitation.

“Can I see her?” Dan asked.

Harry smiled with nerves. Give him an inch… “Sure,” he finally said, untucking his shirt to expose the slightest distension beneath the light ripples of his abdominal muscles.

“There she is!” Dan said with a smile devoid of jealousy for the first time in almost a week. “I say ‘she’ because you said ‘she’ to my bump.” Dan leaned forward, outstretching his hand to connect with Harry’s skin. His flesh was spongy. Unbelievably warm. Incapsulating pure life.

“Well, we all start out that way, right?”

Dan nodded as he removed his hand and used it to rub the left side of his chest; attempting to infuse himself with some of that unadulterated energy. “Is that what you want?” Dan asked. “A girl?”

... and he’ll ask for a mile. Harry shrugged as he covered himself. “Louis and I aren’t going to find out.”

Dan gawked. “You don’t care about the sex of your baby?”

“Nope. I just hope they come out healthy. I can’t say I’ve given it any more thought than that.”

“You’re so boring!” Dan said.

***

“He got mad because you asked if he wanted to know the sex of his baby?” Dominic asked, popping open his can of soda.

“He got mad because I badgered him. I was a little shit about it. I was bored and feeling lonely, having been away from Phil every day all week. The only entertainment I had besides the internet and the television was talking to Harry. Pestering Harry,” Dan amended. “If you had a girl you could, blah blah blah. But if you had a boy it would be hard for you to duh-duh duh-duh duh.”

“And how did he respond?” Dominic asked.

***

“It’s none of your business!” Harry yelled as he stood from the sofa and loomed over his friend. “You’re starting to piss me off, Dan.”

Dan looked up to Harry in confusion. “What?”

“I know that you’re having a rough time, and I don’t anticipate that you’ll be getting over this anytime soon, but we’re not in high school. I can’t play therapist anymore. I can’t let you live vicariously through me.”

“How dare you!” Dan said. “I’m not living vicariously through you. You are my best friend, and I care about you like the second sibling I never had.”

Harry cringed at the sentiment. He hated having to give Dan tough love. “Your care—whatever you choose to call it—is making me uncomfortable. We are adults, now. It’s time we both recognized that my comfort is just as important as your recovery.”

The two stood and sat in their places, letting the conversational entropy crescendo. Dan was utterly dumbfounded, knowing that he had annoyed his first confidant. He shuddered when he saw Harry’s lips part to speak again.

“Can you respect that?” Harry asked.

Dan nodded, realizing the gravity of his answer. “I can.” He had been as far away from tears as his trauma would allow.

“Thank you,” Harry said, resting his bent hand on the back of his hip as he walked over to the front door and slipped on the shoes he had left behind when he came inside the apartment.

“Don’t go,” Dan said. “You just got here!”

Harry shook his head. “I’ve been kneading bread all day. I’m exhausted.” He opened the front door. “See you at Liam’s party.”

“Yeah,” Dan whispered, realizing that the event was exactly a week out. “See you then.”

***

“Can you see where he was coming from?” Dominic asked.

Dan nodded, letting chilled, residual embarrassment seep out his head and down the back of his neck. “He thinks that I’m stuck because of this. Like I can’t move on.”

Dominic shook his head. “Don’t worry about what others think. You’re allowed to stay stuck for as long as you need,” he offered, as he watched Dan’s eyes focus downward in thought. He hadn’t known Dan to be religious, otherwise he would have thought that Dan was praying. Maybe he was. Praying or plotting; either one.

Dan finally looked up from the table, lips tight as he spoke, “One day, I’m gonna have a child.”

“That’s the attitude!” Dominic said, raising his palm for Dan to high-five.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See you tomorrow...


	10. X

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Word Count: 2924  
> Reading Time: 10 minutes 38 seconds
> 
> Warnings: Rough Sex, Cringe.

**30 October 2019**

“Congratulations!” Louis said, raising his beer in the air and waiting for Phil to bring the spout of his bottle to his to cheers. When he finally did, and the resounding clink of glass filled the room, they both took a swig of their drinks, Louis letting up on his far sooner than Phil had. “Don’t drown yourself.”

Phil released the top of the bottle from around his lips and held it at his chest, catching his breath.

“You don’t seem very excited,” Louis said.

“I mean,” Phil muttered as he wiped his lips clean, “I couldn’t be happier that Dan’s pregnant again. It’s just bittersweet, you know. The doctors couldn’t figure out if we lost the first baby because of its genetics or what, so there’s no way to tell if it’s going to happen again.”

Louis groaned in sympathetic frustration, letting the anxiety he felt as the result of nicotine withdrawal take ahold of his right leg. He bounced it on the tips of his toes. “But what are the odds th—”

“About 2%,” Phil cut in.

“Right.” Louis took another sip. He didn’t know why he underestimated the data analyst’s knowledge in the realm of numbers. He brought his hands to the sides of his head to quell the headache his brain-fog had caused.

“Are you okay?” Phil asked.

Louis nodded. “Harry’s been asking me to quit smoking since we got pregnant. I’ve never smoked indoors, but he doesn’t like the ash on me clothes.”

“Secondhand smoke is no joke,” Phil said.

They both chuckled at the rhyme.

“I need to get that printed on a t-shirt for you so every time you feel like having a cigarette, you can just look down and remember your goal.”

“Right?” Louis asked, standing up and sitting right back down to adjust his posture. “Smoking's a hard habit to break, d’you know what I mean? It feels like there’s a balloon in me head, and I can’t stop shaking. And every few days I give in, and the cycle repeats. Ultimately, though, I know that I don’t want all that mess around me baby, d’you know what I mean.”

Phil nodded.

“So, how’s he doing? Feeling alright? Is everything well?”

“I mean it’s gone by the book so far. Nothing can really happen this early on. He’s still so small.” Phil conjured the image of Harry in his head, whom he had seen earlier that afternoon, for comparison. Three weeks into his second trimester, Harry was still in denial that his clothes no longer fit. Overnight, it seemed, the tight core that Harry had enjoyed those first three months had been hidden under all of the weight he had gained from his fruit binges. It frustrated him that his increased metabolism could no longer keep up with his appetite once he wasn’t sick all the time. Phil longed to see Dan as big as Harry.

“That’s good!” Louis said. “No complications.”

“There weren’t any complications last time, either. So we’re just taking it day by day, you know?”

Louis nodded solemnly.

The second time around, Phil’s perspective had changed. Regardless of the trouble they had gone through to get there, Phil was thrilled at the news of Dan’s second pregnancy; maybe even more than thrilled, having gained a richer perspective into the fragility of life after their loss. This time around, Phil wanted to feel everything that Dan felt. When Dan started getting sick, he would be right there beside him with a bin. If Dan was tired, Phil planned on making time to nap with him. The day that Dan felt the first flutter of movement, Phil wanted his hand pressed against Dan’s skin. He didn’t plan on taking a second of this pregnancy for granted. To do that, he needed the clearest mind he could manage; and in that moment, that meant venting to Louis about everything he had been keeping to himself.

“Dan is pretty unsteady about this all,” Phil said with a scoff. “I really shouldn’t have even told you our news just now, but I needed to talk to someone.”

“I’m all ears.” Louis leaned forward to grab the television remote off the coffee table. He paused the football match they had been watching and folded his hands in his lap.

“What I’m going to tell you does not leave this room, alright?” Phil asked.

Louis nodded, nearly shuddering at the sudden, and unfamiliar, intensity in Phil’s deep tone.

“Before we knew he was pregnant again, Dan was a nightmare.”

***

After a day of presentations and meetings and following up on emails with the IT managers below him, Phil wanted nothing more than to sink into the sofa and to live among the cushion-fluff until his spine realigned. He had a vacuum in his stomach that the French pot roast Dan had begun preparing in their slow cooker that morning filled perfectly.

As he and Dan sat together, eating their dinner side-by-side on the couch, Phil nearly forgot about the world of expectations he left behind every day at the stroke of 5 o’clock. In that moment, Phil could only appreciate Dan and his thoughtfulness. It was almost as if Dan had intuited that Phil’s day would be as stressful as it had been and that the pot roast would be the perfect device to send Phil off to bed with good dreams. Only, the pampering hadn’t stopped there. As soon as they both finished their food, Dan stacked their dishes in the sink and resumed his spot beside Phil.

“Turn around,” Dan said, reaching out and curling his fingers.

Phil did as he was instructed, knowing exactly what was to come next. He rolled his shoulders on their joints as he scooted back, getting as close to Dan as he could without sitting on him.

“Is that good?” Dan asked as he dug along the muscles in Phil’s back with his thumbs.

Phil yelped at the temporary pain he was unprepared for. He knew it would all be worth the release in the end. “Yup, babe. That’s great,” he said, queuing Dan to continue. The grief had stolen plenty from Dan, but in a display of mercy, it left him his giving spirit and his taffy-pulling hands. “I’ve made up my mind,” Phil said, letting his head hang low to his chest, “When I’m eighty years old, and I’m on my deathbed, don’t let them give me morphine. You just come around behind me and do exactly what you’re doing now. I’ll be just fine.”

Dan chuckled. “I’m that good at massage?” he asked.

“You are the most talented masseuse I have ever met,” Phil said before he winced at the feeling of Dan’s knuckle against his lower back muscles. “Keep going,” Phil assured.

Dan sat up, getting on his knees so he could meet Phil’s ear. “Keep going?” he asked in a whisper.

“If you want,” Phil said, turning around to face his husband. “If you can handle it.”

Phil thought he saw Dan flinch. Like Phil had offended him in asking if he was ready to risk failure. They both knew that’s what Phil wanted to clarify.

_Could you do this all over again?_

__“I can,” Dan said. His eyes turned to glass._ _

“Then, let’s go.” Phil stood from the sofa and reached for Dan’s hand to lead him to their bedroom.

“Want to go to space?” Phil asked as he pulled his phone from his pocket and waved it in the air.

Dan shook his head. “No music tonight.” He slipped his hand out of Phil’s and reached for the bottom of his shirt, pulling it over his head. He did the same with his trousers before he grabbed Phil’s jumper. Once Phil had accepted Dan’s help, he raised his arms and let Dan yank the article off his body, exposing him to the cold air. Seconds later, he felt a decade of frantic fingers undoing his belt. Phil couldn’t say he minded Dan’s eagerness, especially when he knew it would lead to greater things.

“What’s the plan?” Phil asked before Dan smashed a kiss onto his lips. “You want to go first, and then I can—“

“I want you to fuck me, Phil,” Dan said. So detached yet so determined.

All the blood headed for Phil’s groin promptly redirected itself to his face. “I—“

“We’ve only ever made love before,” Dan said. “Tonight, I want to get fucked.”

“Oh-Okay,” Phil said. He wasn’t entirely sure what Dan meant, but he was willing to try anything once.

“Okay,” Dan said, pulling away from Phil. He turned around and kneeled over the side of the bed on all fours.

The sight of Dan’s arse sticking up in the air startled Phil. He liked to see Dan’s face when they were intimate. That way, he felt like he was doing something with Dan, not to him. Still, he couldn’t crush Dan’s first glimmer of confidence since August. Phil accepted the task as a compromise.

Placing one hand on Dan’s back, Phil leaned into Dan and inserted a pair of fingers to prime him for what was to come. It had been a calendar month since they had last been together, and Phil didn’t want to hurt Dan. He rubbed Dan’s insides, slowly working his way around until he found Dan’s prostate and milked it. Phil had done it about a million times before. It was the perfect way to loosen Dan up, and usually, it was incredibly hot to watch. To see every stroke of his fingers have an effect on Dan’s face. The way his eyes scrunched and his neck extended, almost trying to prolong the pleasure by lengthening the distance between his nerves and his brain. It got Phil going. The sound of his breath was always intoxicatingly low, like he was trying to put out a candle sat right in front of a house of cards. But with Dan’s back in the way, Phil couldn’t see or hear any of that.

“Turn over,” Phil said as he removed his fingers, anointed with the fresh remnants of a fleet enema.

Dan let out a huff before he obliged and laid on his back. As soon as Dan was settled, Phil leaned over him, getting ready to kiss him as he felt Dan’s hands wrap around his waist. That was what he needed to get off. The feeling of Dan’s life all around him.

Phil laid himself over , bringing one leg up and around Dan’s. Lips met and separated without the aid of music to set the pace. Hair was grabbed and swept out of eyes as a rock of an erection formed between their bodies.

“Here we go,” Dan said, grabbing Phil’s shoulders to raise him off himself.

Phil nodded as he took himself off Dan and leaned over to the nightstand. “Warming or regular?” Phil asked.

Dan shook his head, reaching for Phil’s chest above him.

“Neither.”

“Are you sure? It’s been—”

“I’m sure,” Dan said.

“Okay…” Phil whispered as he returned to Dan’s end, taking the tip of his penis, and guiding it into Dan as gently as he could. “Is that fine?”

Dan nodded with his eyes closed.

Phil started rocking into Dan at a comfortable speed, knowing that at some point—as per Dan’s request—he would need to speed up. In the meantime, Phil watched Dan from above taking each motion back and forth without even so much as a flinch. Phil could feel Dan’s pulse in his core as slow and as steady as it had been before they started. In that time of relative peace, Phil examined the body he had missed seeing in its entirety. At the base of Dan’s pubic bone where he carried the bulk of his baby weight, a shroud of skin remained, shrunken in around his hip bones. The bottom of his ribs bulged from his middle, and the overlapping muscles behind his knees were the most defined as Phil had ever seen them. He wouldn’t have been considered medically underweight. Dan had merely dropped a stone and a half too quickly for Phil’s liking.

“You’re ready?” Phil asked once he snapped his eyes away from Dan’s frame.

“Give it to me, Daddy,” Dan said.

Phil cringed and gagged facetiously, sensing that Dan had only said it to make him laugh. He sped up his movements. Nearly thirty seconds in, he was almost out of breath.

“Keep going,” Dan said, feeling the slightest buckle in Phil’s form. “Faster.”

Phil went in faster, making sure his movements were somewhat shallow as to not injure Dan.

“Come on,” Dan huffed, finally releasing the breath he had been too focused to exhale.

“I’m going,” Phil said, fearing that if he didn’t give Dan what he wanted Dan would ask to ride him. Dan had been eager enough that night. The last thing Phil could handle was letting Dan take control. He sped up even more, unable to prevent the collision of their pelvises.

“There you go,” Dan moaned.

Phil wasn’t sure how long he could keep it up for. His legs burned with over-exertion.

“Fuck me, Phil.”

Phil looked down again, this time finding the penis he knew would still be flaccid. Dan wasn’t enjoying this. Neither was Phil. Despite his best efforts, Phil knew he was hurting Dan because the sex was hurting himself. He leaned back for a second, to take a break, and Dan shot upright.

“What are you doing?”

“It’s a lot of work, what you’re asking for,” Phil said as he caught his breath. He wiped sweat off his forehead before he returned his attention to Dan. This time, he reinserted himself and grabbed one of Dan’s thighs in each hand, hoping that his touch would excite Dan. He continued his bucking, trying to achieve the same speed as before and pressing Dan’s legs farther apart under his own weight. Dan was so fragile under Phil. He felt that if he kept going, he would rip Dan down his centre into two unmendable halves.

“Don’t stop,” Dan cried.

Phil felt terrible.

“Put another baby in me!”

It took a second for the words to register in Phil’s head. That’s what this was about. The delicious meal. The massage. The sex. It was only a means to an end. Dan didn’t want Phil; he wanted a return to normalcy.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Phil said, pulling out and standing beside the bed. He bent over to pick up the clothes he had left behind and ran to the bathroom, locking the door behind himself.

“Phil!” Dan called as he chased after him. He slapped the door with his open hand. “What’s wrong?”

Phil’s head spun as the racket of Dan’s voice reached him. He could still feel the throbbing of the erection between his legs stealing the blood from his brain that he needed to effectively communicate. “Get dressed, and wait for me,” he yelled to Dan, barely able to comprehend what had happened. “We need to talk about this.”

***

“I only let it happen once,” Phil said to Louis, “but damn!”

Louis sat across from Phil with his hand pressed to his mouth in shock.

“I thought to myself, ‘I don’t deserve this! Neither of us deserve to feel like this.’ So I told him, no more unprotected sex until he got his shit together.”

“Good for you,” Louis said, finally hearing a statement that he could support. “What do you think it was about? You think he feels guilty for the miscarriage?”

Phil nodded. “Awfully guilty. Maybe not so much because he thinks he caused it, but he feels like it shouldn’t have happened, and he even told me that he wanted to do everything he could to fix the timeline.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear that he did end up fixing it by getting pregnant and all, but how did that come about? You seem very upset about the incident, even today.”

Phil shook his head. “We’re in therapy.”

“Phil!” Louis wined, offering his friend the pity Phil had expected such an announcement would illicit.

“Separately. Not marriage counseling. There’s no doubt that we love each other madly,” Phil assured, “We’ve just both got issues. For the first time in my life, I’m truly grieving. And Dan—Gosh, I don’t think I could survive five minutes with his internal monologue.” Phil took a sip of his beer. “I’ll admit. There were days when I knew he wasn’t ready. Once, I even caught him walking 'round the house with a pillow tucked under his shirt."

Louis pouted. "That's precious."

Phil nodded. "He was terribly embarrassed. Hasn't done it since. The instant I saw him getting better—being his normal, careful self and compromising—I caved. If I didn’t, he wouldn’t be pregnant again. I can admit that it was a mistake, but I don’t regret it for a second.”

“It’s been weeks since you’ve both started seeing psychiatrists, I assume. It’s helping?” Louis asked.

“I want to believe that it’s the therapy that’s making Dan feel better; now that he has a place to share his emotions without fear that he’ll offend me. But there’s also a part of me that knows my husband inside and out,” Phil said, raising his voice with passion, “and it’s telling me that the majority of his happiness comes from the fact that he’s now got what he wanted.”

Louis hummed in understanding.

“I just don’t want all of this to go away if, God forbid—” Phil stopped himself.

“It won’t!” Louis leaned over and placed his hand on Phil’s shoulder. “It won’t.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See you tomorrow...


	11. XI

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Word Count: 3022  
> Reading Time: 11 minutes

**18 December 2019**

_Dionysus_

Hey Dad! You have officially made it to your second trimester. Don’t forget to log your symptoms here on the Dionysus app.

Dan let out an excited laugh, loud enough to travel all the way to the kitchen. Seconds later, there was a scratching noise against the bottom of the door. Dan could hear Phil scolding the transgressor from the outside.

“Jagger! Get away from the door,” Phil said. “Dan is sleeping.”

“I’m not anymore!” Dan shouted to Phil. “Both of you, come in.”

Phil opened the door, and in ran Dominic and Ashley’s Pit Bull mix. Once he reached Dan’s bedside, he jumped and rested his paws on the mattress, leaning over to lick Dan’s face.

“Hello, sweet boy! How did you sleep?” Dan asked the dog between wet kisses.

“I think he found a place in the closet,” Phil said, impersonating the dog by nestling his face in his arms. “He just cozied up in a pile of towels and slept there all night.”

“Let him up,” Dan requested as Phil approached the bed.

Phil shook his head. “Are you crazy? Ashley seemed pretty proud of how disciplined Jagger is. I don’t want an angry phone call from her when she and Dom come home from New Jersey asking me why Jagger started sleeping in bed with them. It was bad enough I let you convince me to take him out of his crate!”

“He was crying!” Dan defended.

Phil sighed. It broke Phil’s heart to remember the look on Dan’s face as he heard Jagger’s whining from inside his cage in the living room and the sighs he made that suggested Phil take action. “He was,” Phil agreed as he plopped facedown onto the bed next to Dan. “What was so funny first thing in the morning?”

“Oh!” Dan said, raising his phone to show Phil the notification.

“Sweetheart, that’s wonderful!” Phil said after he read the words on the screen. “I’m so proud of you.” He got up on his elbows to kiss Dan’s lips before he peeled the duvet off Dan and uncovered his round belly. “And you too,” he added, planting a kiss above Dan’s oblique. “Can you feel this?” Phil asked before pressing his lips back onto Dan’s skin and blowing a raspberry. Jagger, who had still been perched at the side of the bed. let out a low growl at the noise. He tried to climb the bed, uncomfortable with the attention Phil was paying to Dan’s bump. Phil immediately backed away.

“He did not like that!” Dan said through nervous laughter. “It’s okay, boy.” He stroked the top of Jagger’s head, scratching him through his short, golden pelt.

With Dan’s reassurance, Jagger sunk and laid on the floor, settling down with an uninspired sigh.

“This is a big deal, though!” Phil said, pointing to Dan’s phone. “The risk of miscarriage drops to basically nothing after you make it to the second trimester.”

“I know,” Dan said, covering himself up with his nightshirt and draping his hand over his middle. His response was void of the relief Phil hoped Dan would have felt at the statistic. “I don’t mean to be a downer when I say this, but Dr. Kellgren-Fozard said that it’s best to speak about these things before they manifest somewhere else.”

Phil nodded at the advice from Dan’s therapist. “Go ahead.”

“It’s just, how can I say that I’m at any lower of a risk than I was yesterday? What could have possibly happened over the course of a night’s rest that makes Baby Lester that much safer?”

Phil shrugged. “I don’t pretend to be a doctor. Maybe you just need to trust what your body is telling you. Do you feel alright?”

Dan nodded.

“Then that’s all that mat—”

Phil’s sentence was cut short by another groan from Jagger.

“I’m not even touching him!” Phil said.

“I think that means he needs to go out for a wee,” Dan offered.

“Damn.” Phil pushed up from the bed. “I think you’re right. How about you get dressed really quickly, so we can make this a family affair. I was thinking we could take him to the dog park. Tire him out. Get us some exercise,” Phil suggested. Over the course of the past two weeks, Phil had noticed himself put on a few pounds alongside Dan. A brief fit of vanity had stolen his thoughts, as a result.

“Eh…” Dan grumbled. “Why not?”

***

Jagger was an easy walker—for Dan at least. The dog would not move when Phil held his leash, but the second Dan took over, Jagger walked at his shin, watching Dan’s every movement as they traveled down the streets.

No one dared to encroach on their personal space with Jagger around. The dog was endearing enough to those who cared to take a long look at him, but for everyone else, they found the dog quite intimidating. Along the way, he made frequent stops to wee on every tree they passed.

When they finally reached the dog park, they freed Jagger from his leash and stood near a bench by the fence’s gate. They had never had a dog to bring to this park, but they suspected that the number of people who had made it out was typical for the time of day.

Both benches had been occupied by dog owners, and the ones who couldn’t sit stood around, enjoying each other’s regular company. In the centre of the park, where a circle of grass had been planted, a pack of dogs congregated, sniffing each other and playing their usual rough-housing games. A long-haired chihuahua began to mount the leg of a Dalmatian, to which the Dalmatian responded by nipping at the chihuahua’s ear. A triad of Pomeranians had taken to ganging up on a poor, old Dachshund, while a Shiba Inu was busy smelling the backside of a golden retriever puppy. The German Shephard and the Polish Lowland Sheepdog watched from afar as Jagger entered the mix and disrupted the park’s natural order.

“Phil!” Dan called, grabbing Phil’s shoulder as all of the dogs in the grass circle crowded Jagger. “Watch the dog. He might snap.”

“Huh?” Phil asked as he looked up from the game he was playing on his phone.

After the dogs had made a careful assessment of Jagger’s behind, ears, and mouth, they were satisfied with his presence, and they left him alone.

“Thank, God!” Dan said, letting go of Phil’s shoulder in exchange for his hand. “They like him.”

“Excuse me!” The older woman sitting on the nearest bench called to them.

They both turned toward her, Dan with his eyes scrunched in confusion.

“I’m going to be leaving right now. Young man,” she addressed Dan, “Do you fancy my seat?”

Thirteen weeks ago, no one would have offered their seat to Dan. Shit. It wouldn’t have even happened three weeks ago. But now, Dan was obviously pregnant, and not even his thigh-length, extra-insulated down coat could hide it anymore. If anything, the quilting added more bulk to his midsection.

“Yes,” Dan nodded. “That’s very kind of you!”

The woman smiled up at Dan before she called out the name “Rascal,” and the chihuahua came barreling towards her in a mess of speeding legs. Both couldn’t help but chuckle as the woman attached a harness to the dog and relinquished the bench to them. “Cheers,” she said, waving them goodbye as she opened the gate and left.

“And that, Phil,” Dan said, “is why we call them the Greatest Generation."

As they sat, enjoying the ambiance of the dog park Dan looked around to inspect the festive decorations. Each light pole had been trimmed with red, green, and gold ribbons and bows. Jingle bells had been tied to the chain-link fence, and music played from the speakers of the nearby shopping centre. It took Phil acknowledging Dan humming along to the instrumental version of “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)” for Dan to even realize that he was doing it.

“Can you play this song?” Phil asked, tapping his fingers in the air like he was playing an imaginary piano.

Dan shrugged. “Probably, if I learned the chords again. I’ve been very busy with The Dan and Dom Show and Harry’s shower and Louis’ party. I haven’t really had time to play, lately.”

“Well, it’s Christmastime. You and I have the next two weeks off, so hopefully, you can have some free time.”

“Let’s hope,” Dan said as he stuck his hands in his pockets.

“So, Harry’s having a baby shower?”

“Yup.”

“Isn’t it a bit early for that?”

“It’s not happening until March, but I thought I’d be a good friend and start planning it for him now.”

“That’s very sweet of you,” Phil said.

“It’s a lot of work, especially since he knows exactly what he wants, you know. He’s already got a whole Pinterest board full of inspiration for me about everything from games to his paternity photoshoot.”

Phil giggled to himself. “I might know a photographer who would be willing to take Harry’s photograph as long as…”

“Stop it!” Dan said, bursting out into laughter as well.

“…as long as he lets her use them in her art gallery.”

“Oh, please.” Dan leaned back on the bench, crossing his legs as he tried—and failed—to relax on the metal seat.

As many of his hobbies as that Dan had been neglecting because of his busy life, he was grateful for all the work to keep his mind occupied. For, whenever he wasn’t forcing himself to focus on the task in front of him, memories from that past October creeped back to taunt him. It was easily the most embarrassing time in his life; more embarrassing than his high school days because this time, he had made a fool of himself in front of the people that meant something to him. Between his imprudence when pressuring Phil out of his comfort zones and objectifying Harry left and right, he didn’t know how either of them stood to forgive him. He knew he needed both of them to put him in his place, and he was grateful that they did. He just hated how it made him feel and the changes that came about. And poor Dominic! The man had barely known Dan for a fortnight before he witnessed him through the hardest time in his life, yet he still honoured his commitment to Dan and the EEN. It nearly made Dan cry just thinking about Dominic’s true character.

“Brown Pit Bull!” A man called from the other side of the park.

Dan and Phil’s heads turned towards the voice.

“Yeah?” Phil asked.

“He’s gone poo!” the man informed.

“Thanks,” Phil said before turning to Dan with an annoyed snarl.

Dan chuckled. “Get used to it,” he said. “This’ll be our life for the next two years, minimum.”

Phil let out a groan as he stood and jogged to the other end of the dog park where Jagger had been sitting behind his own droppings, waiting for Phil. After Phil took care of the mess with the communal shovel, he returned to Dan at the bench and took his first breath through his nose since before leaving him.

“My God!” Phil said, twisting his back to crack before he sat next to Dan. “Dog poo is probably the worst smell on the planet.”

Dan laughed as he got closer to Phil and wrapped his arm around him.

“It’s not funny! My eyes are watering, and I’m one gust of scented air away from losing my breakfast. It’s like your morning sickness got tired of you, and thought, ‘Hey, why don’t I take Phil out for a test drive?’ “

“Are you seriously nauseous?”

Phil nodded.

“That’s fascinating!” Dan said, running his hand through the hair on the back of Phil’s head. “I read an article about sympathetic pregnancies.”

“What’s that?”

“You don’t know what it is?” Dan asked, eyes lighting up with amusement. “That makes it all the better! Anyways, a sympathetic pregnancy is this totally legitimate psychological phenomenon that happens to the observing partner of a pregnant person. Basically, you start getting my symptoms after you witness me having them.”

“What!?” Phil asked.

“It’s crazy, right? Let me guess: You’ve been suffering in silence with a keen nose, acid reflux, and fatigue.”

“Exactly!” Phil said. “How did you know?”

“Because that’s precisely what I’ve experienced.”

Phil shook his head. “And how much longer do I have to put up with this? Forty minus thirteen…”

Dan chuckled. “I’m actually very glad that this is happening to you.”

Phil scoffed. “Because you get off on my pain, even after I’ve attended to your every need for both pregnancies?”

“No!” Dan said. “It lets me know that your love for me is subconsciously etched into your brain.”

Phil pouted at the sentiment. “You’re right.” He looked up to Dan’s eyes, enjoying them and their consistent, brown warmth.

***

“Dan Howell!” A young woman called from across the street. “Is that you?” Her friend had gotten close to whisper in her ear.

“Who’s that?” Phil asked.

“No clue,” Dan said as he watched the two girls cut across the road to reach him. “Here. Hold the dog.” Dan gave Jagger’s leash to Phil.

“Where’s Dom?” the first girl asked.

“Puppy!” The second girl said. “You never talk about him on the show!”

Dan turned to Phil with a jack o’lantern grin, letting Phil know that this was his first fan encounter ever. He had spent almost four years on the radio, but no one was ever astute enough to pick out his voice outside the setting of a broadcast.

“Dom is on holiday in the States, actually,” Dan said, giving the girls his full attention, “And, I never talk about this dog because he’s not mine. We’re just dog sitting until Dom and his girlfriend come back.”

“I told you he has a girlfriend!” The second girl said to the first, pointing her finger in excitement.

“What are your names?” Dan asked through a chuckle.

“I’m Stacy,” the first girl said.

“And I’m Mary,” said the second.

“Well, hello Stacy and Mary. You guys know who I am, obviously.” Dan waved.

“Is this Phil?” Mary asked.

Phil nodded, supposing that they probably knew who he was because of some ad lib comment Dan had made while recording his podcast. “That’s me!” Phil said.

Stacy muttered something unbelievably fast to Mary, and they both broke out into a squealing fit before they recomposed themselves.

“God! You’re so tall! I wouldn’t have known since you and Dom only film from the chest up, sitting at that table.”

“Yeah…” Dan said, turning around to laugh with Phil.

“Would you mind if we take a picture with you two?” Stacy asked.

“Not at all,” Dan said. “Come here, Phil.” Dan motioned for Phil to come closer.

Phil shook his head. “I’m not the one with the podcast, and I don’t think Mr. Jagger’s gonna let me move. I’ll take the photo for you, no problem.”

“Thank you!” Mary said as she handed Phil her phone with the camera opened and ready.

“Ready?” Dan asked as the girls flocked under his opened arms. They pulled him close, wrapping their arms around him from both sides.

Even from behind the phone, Dan could see the suspense on Phil’s face. Through the phone’s screen, Phil could see the extra milimetres of nervous smile that cut into Dan’s cheek’s; the subtle commotion in Dan’s eyes that told him that the girls' hands were hovering directly over their baby.

“Yup!” Mary said as she and Stacy struck their final poses.

Phil snapped a burst of at least fifteen pictures, secretly hoping that they were all too blurry to be shared on social media. “Here you go,” Phil said as he handed the phone back.

“You two have a nice day,” Dan said as he grabbed Jagger and led him and Phil down the street back home.

They remained quiet as they left the girls, waiting until they were far enough away to voice their concerns.

“That’s what I was thinking!” They could still hear Mary say. “I just didn’t have the guts to ask him. That would have been too personal!”

Dan sighed. “Enter caramel rumors from stage left."

“We’re they really that close?” Phil asked.

“Oh, they were palpating!”

Phil shook his head with a laugh.

“I mean, I was never opposed to telling my audience,” Dan said. “It just hadn’t come up yet.”

“That’s a lie!” Phil accused. “Dominic has the biggest mouth in London. There’s no way the world doesn’t know yet unless you specifically asked him not to say anything.”

Dan shook his head. “I swear, I have not said a word to him about this. I think he intrinsically knows how sensitive the topic is.”

Phil huffed out a laugh. “Sounds like Youngblood has a brain on him, too!”

“He’s clever, you know,” Dan said. “The most talented musician I’ve ever met. He’s been trying to get a record deal with his friend for a while now.”

“I hope he does,” Phil said, letting his mind drift towards thoughts of the future. “He and Ashley are coming to Louis’ party, right?”

“Yup.”

“Didn’t Dom say she can cook? What’s she bringing?”

Dan shrugged. “I don’t know. I think I heard Louis say that he wants to try his hand at cooking. We’ll see how that goes.”

“Let’s just pray that Ashley pulls through with a main dish or Harry has time to prepare something. I don’t think I’ll be able to sustain myself on the sides we bring.”

Dan laughed. “You have so little faith in your best friend!”

“It’s not that I have no faith. Christmas is my favourite!

My expectations are just high.”

“The apartment says otherwise.”

“You’re right. We better decorate before everyone comes over,” Phil suggested.

“How about we start when we get home?”

“I’d like that,” Phil said, leaning in to kiss Dan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See you tomorrow...


	12. XII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Word Count: 5291  
> Reading Time: 19 minutes 14 seconds
> 
> Warnings: pregnancy loss, mentions of blood, medical emergency, it's really fucking rough, I had a visceral reaction to writing this.

**25 December 2019**

“So it’s chicken,” Louis started, “stuffed with mozzarella—”

“Wrapped in Parma ham, with a side of _homemade_ mash,” Harry finished with him in unison, rendering a laugh from everyone else.

“It’s his go-to meal,” Harry said, ”and the first thing he ever cooked me. It wasn’t half bad five years ago.”

“What’s Parma ham?” Ashley asked.

“It’s this Italian meat,” Louis explained.

She leaned in closer to get a better look at the chicken’s coating. “Oh! You mean prosciutto! I know what that is.”

“Atta girl,” Louis said, offering Ashley a high-five. “If it were Dan or Harry’s birthday, I would have avoided cooking with cured meats, but it’s not. It’s mine!” Louis’ charm undercut his feigned narcissism.

“Your birthday was yesterday!” Harry said.

“If Jesus can have a two-day celebration for his birthday, so can I, damnit!”

“Whatever!” Harry shook his head, courting the pile of china on the edge of the counter. “May we?” he asked, turning to Dan with an eager grin.

“Yup.” Dan reached for a plate. “Dig in.”

With that, a whirlwind of arms spooned heaps of Dan and Phil’s vegetables. Spatulas carried squares of Ashley’s vegan lasagna, and even the daring fork or two pierced through Louis’ chicken breasts. After the couples ravished the dishes, they all took their seats around the dinner table where Dan had created each of them a name card and a crown made of golden, foiled cardstock.

“How cute are these?” Dominic remarked as he raised the crown to his head then helped Ashley fit hers around the back of her long braids. “How long did this take you, Dan?” Dan shrugged. “All day, I guess.”

That morning, Dan had been hustling all around the apartment, cleaning every dusty surface, primping his skin, and crafting all of the decorations that turned their home into a winter wonderland. In the middle of his chores, Dan’s phone rang with a FaceTime call from his mother.

“Hi, Mum!” he answered, waving to the camera before he set it on the ironing board he had pitched in their living room.

“Merry Christmas!” she greeted, following her cheer with a sigh. “Son, I didn’t video call you just to see your ceiling.

Dan chuckled. “I’m busy.”

“Doing what?”

“Pressing this tablecloth. We’re having guests over, and I want everything to be neat and orderly before they arrive.”

“Harry?” Mrs. Howell asked, bringing the phone close to her face to hear better.

“Yup,” Dan said, dragging the iron across the bright red tablecloth. “Harry and Louis and Dominic—the guy I do my show with—and his girlfriend, Ashley.”

“Sure,” she said, forgetting all the other names after the one she recognized. “Has he had his baby yet?”

“Nope. He’s only, what”—Dan searched for the number in his jumbled mind—“twenty-two, twenty-three weeks. Some odd number like that.”

Mrs. Howell cooed. “And he’s doing alright?”

“Uh-huh,” Dan said, knowing where the conversation was going; knowing exactly what she would ask of him if he allowed her to take it there.

“And you?”

“I’m fourteen weeks, today.” He couldn’t help but take pride in the words. Fourteen was his new favorite number.

“Are you? Can I see your tummy?” she asked, clapping her enthusiastic hands.

“No!” Dan said. “It’s nothing special.”

“Nothing special?” she asked. “That’s my grandbaby you’re speaking about.”

“Well, they’re my actual baby,” Dan said, turning around to find Phil entering the hall from the bathroom, “and you’ll get to visit them as often as you’d like when they’re outside of my body.”

“That’s rubbish.” She swatted at the camera. “Honey!” she called as the phone picked up the loud creaking of the floorboards through the house. “I’ve got Daniel on the line. Come say hello.”

Dan picked up his phone at the sound of his father’s muffled grumblings as he walked over to meet his wife and took the phone.

“Daniel,” he addressed.

“Father.”

For a few seconds, there was nothing but dead silence between the two phones. “Merry Christmas,” Mr. Howell finally said.

“Merry Christmas to you, too.”

Mrs. Howell reached for her husband’s shoulder. “Go on,” she said. “Tell him to show us the baby.”

Mr. Howell cringed. “God, woman! Leave the poor boy alone. Keep your shirt on,” he told Dan.

“Will do,” Dan said as he watched the phone transfer from parent to parent.

“Well, isn’t he a Grinch?” Mrs. Howell asked.

Dan’s smile returned the instant he saw his mum's face again. “You won’t even show me for five seconds?” she pouted. “Five seconds I promise.”

“Fine!” he said. Letting his eyes roll. “Phil, can you please hold this phone for me?”

Phil set down the cup of juice he had been filling to drink and hurried over to Dan.

“Turn the camera around, please,” he asked as he took a few steps away from Phil and unbuttoned his trousers.

Phil did what was asked of him, and filmed Dan. He got the perfect side profile of Dan standing up straight, shoulders back with the arm not visible to the camera holding the extra bundle of clothes he had lifted and held behind his back. A perfect roundness emerged from the walls of clothing Dan had shrouded himself in.

Inspecting the protrusion in his own skin was still surreal to Dan, seeing as he tried to do it as seldom as possible. He hadn’t detested his bump. In fact, he had grown fond of tracking its growth; looking up what food the size of their baby was and making sure he was on track in terms of weight gain. But that was as far as he allowed himself to feel. He would let the overwhelming love and protection kick in the instant Dr. Muller laid his son or daughter on his chest for the first time.

A shutter noise sounded from the phone. And another. And a few more in rapid succession.

Dan broke his gaze away from his stomach as he looked into the camera. “Are you taking screenshots?”

“I had to, Love. You won’t send me any pictures of you,” she said.

“There’s really nothing to see!” Dan shouted as he closed the distance between him and Phil to take his mobile back. “I’ve got to finish getting everything ready,” Dan said. I’ll call you in the morning to tell you about the party.”

“Sounds like a plan,” she said before she blew each of them a goodbye kiss and hung up.

“Goodness!” Dan said before plopping into his sofa crease to rest. “Can you turn off that iron for me?” Dan asked Phil before he returned to the kitchen.

“Sure,” Phil bent over to unplug the iron’s cord from the socket. “What’s wrong?”

Dan shook his head as he rubbed the area above his pubic bone. “It’s just my ligaments.”

Not only had his back been acting up after he and Phil resumed their spoon-sleeping, but a new ache inflamed the round ligaments in his front. Dr. Muller put him at ease when she told him that the pain was expected as he entered the second trimester and his muscles stretched with his growing organ. That security didn’t detract from the physicality of it. Every so often, Dan would be struck with a ripping sensation on one or both sides that went away after he took a break from whatever he was doing.

“It really fucking hurts.”

Phil didn’t like the sound of that talk. He remembered very similar words being used when something much more serious was happening. “Do you want me to call the doctor?” he asked.

“No, no,” Dan said. “She already knows.”

Phil turned to Dan with a suspicious cock in his brow.

“They’re normal pains, Phil. Harry gets them, too.”

“Alright,” Phil said, finally making it back to the kitchen. “I’m gonna start cooking.” Phil opened the fridge and pulled out the packets of vegetables.

“But you’re already dressed,” Dan said admiring Phil and his pine green button-down shirt. “You’ll get flour all over your clothes.”

“Okay, I’ll rephrase: Boiling and heating things in the oven.”

“That’s more like it!”

The look on Phil’s face was that of pure shame the moment Dominic opened his mouth after his first bite of frozen sides.

“Now that is a Yorkshire pud!” Dom said. “Louis, get a bite of one of these. It’s like it’s straight outta Donny! What did you put in there to get the meat so tender?”

“Baby!” Ashley called with an air of laughter in her low, serene voice. “Can we at least say a few words before you start filling your hole?”

“My bad, Darling,” Dominic said. “Go ahead.” He planted a kiss on her jaw after he swallowed his food.

“Thank you,” Ashley said as she reached for the glass of wine that Louis had poured for all the drinkers at the table. “I just wanted to thank our hosts for having us. I’m sure a lot of effort went into tonight, and let me assure you, it was all worth it. The love in this room right now is what I felt when I was back at home with my family and Dom. Thank you Harry and Louis for the food and deserts. And thank you, Dan and Phil for taking care of Jagger while we were away.”

Phil offered Ashley a, “you’re welcome,” with the bowing of his head.”

“Anyone else want to add anything?”

Harry raised his glass. “I’d like to say a toast for the hosts as well. Dan and Phil, my lifelong friends. My newer friends—you’re pretty cool too”—Harry waved to Dominic and Ashley—“But Dan and me. We were brought up together, so we’ve shared a lot of Christmases. But, for a multitude of reasons, this year is different. It would seem that for the first time in our lives, we’ve captured the spirit that they try to sell.”

He didn’t realize it until Harry said it out loud, but Dan felt the same way. The cold weather, the charity, the rituals of the holidays, and even the commercial aspects of this winter felt sacred, for once. Dan hadn’t been that happy since his wedding.

“So to Ashley and Dominic, I wish you two and your doggie happiness,” Harry continued, “To Phil, I wish for your continued success. To the love of my life, I wish you another happy year—” Louis cooed and thanked Harry.

“And to Dan, my brother: may he have a long and healthy pregnancy,” Harry said, reaching for Dan’s hand across the table.

No matter how hard he squinted, Dan couldn’t prevent the tears from slipping out of his eyes as the rest of the table raised their glasses to Harry’s and cheered. Normally, he would have hated the flattery, but that night, he felt like he deserved it.

“Thank you all,” Dan said, pulling a paper towel from the kitchen roll in the centre of the table to dry his face. “Now, please. Let’s eat.”

Harry whooped, rolling up his sleeves and pulling his hair into a bun with the tie he had been wearing around his wrist. “I should have brought a bib,” Harry said. He held the bottom of his navy blue sweater vest, covered in fuzzy, white sheep. "This is consignment designer!”

The table laughed.

“Yeah,” Ashley said. “When I heard about the dress code, I should have known better than to bring something with tomatoes.” She took a second to scan everyone else’s outfits; Phil in his green shirt, Dan in his black, wool jumper, Louis in his satin bomber jacket, and Dominic in his grey vest, similar to Harry’s. Dom is Bizzaro Harry. Ashley chuckled to herself, knowing that her own white prairie-style dress was safe from stains. She could handle her sauce.

After the first bites of all the dishes were taken, and the chefs were complimented for their respective work, the party fell into a comfortable rhythm of chewing to the soft beat of the music playing throughout the apartment. All the Christmas classics: old, new, secular, religious, originals, and covers. The gentle lapping of the flames in the fireplace mesmerized those facing it. They were almost entranced enough to miss Harry eating his unique choice of side dish.

“Woah, Haz,” Dominic said with a chuckle once he noticed what was in the soup bowl in front of him. “Have you got enough peas?”

That instant, everyone’s eyes fell to Harry who had been leaning over his food on both elbows, spoonful of green peas half in his mouth.

“Harry, did you eat a whole soup bowl of just peas?” Dan asked.

Harry nodded unabashedly. “What?” He chewed his peas. “They’re healthy.”

“You’re so fuckin’ adorable,” Louis said, reaching over to tickle Harry’s side.

By the end of dinner, the pans and dishes that everyone had brought their food in had been mostly cleared. Phil couldn’t discern whether that was because the food was particularly good that night, or if everyone had known exactly how much to bring. It was hard to ponder the question, hard to take himself away from the present, when Dan had been so alive sitting beside him. He barely noticed Dan without a grin on his face the entire dinner.

There was nothing left of the Christmas pudding Harry had made for Louis. This year, he went with a mincemeat made of dried apricots, peaches, cherries, and plums. Dominic gaped at the changes made to such a classic recipe, knowing that his mother would find them sacrilegious.

Once they had all grown tired of eating, they moved the party into the living room where Ashley spotted the upright piano in the corner. As everyone else found their way to the couch, she took a spot on the bench at the low end of the piano, fingers lingering on a slow introduction that Dan recognized.

“Oh! Oh!” Dan said, patting his head to help himself remember the name of the song. “Is that the duet from-from—"

“The Corpse Bride,” Ashley said.

“The Corpse Bride!”

“Is it you or Phil who plays?”

“I do.”

“Then, get your ass up here!” Ashley said, slapping the bench beside herself.

Dan stood from the couch, trotting over to Ashley a little too fast for his body’s liking. He let out a groan as he lowered himself down to the bench beside her.

“Is it your ligaments?” Harry asked, noticing the pained slouch in Dan’s back.

“Yup,” Dan said. He turned around to face Phil, making sure that Harry’s question calmed his concerns. “Alright. Are you ready?”

Ashley nodded and got her hands in position to play. Seconds later, she began the same introduction and progressed through the tranquil beginning. “This is the part of the movie where Victor apologizes to Emily for being a pussy,” Ashley explained. She had to honour the piece in its entirety, even the boring bits that led up to the climax.

“And this,” Dan said, playing on his cue, ”is where he finally comes in.”

The entire room watched in silence as Ashley and Dan progressed through the call-and-response act, which then developed into the duet’s final baroque wave that ended with Ashley leaning over into Dan’s half of the piano to trill between a high C and D. She apologized to Dan for invading his personal space as they rose from the bench and took in their standing ovation. Ashley reached for Dan’s hand and led him in a bow before they joined their partners on the couch.

“That was lovely, you too,” Phil said. “And if that’s all the live music we’ll be getting tonight, I’d like to present Louis with his annual duty of picking what movie we watch.” Phil leaned forward to grab the remote to hand to Louis. Louis thanked him and began searching for films across the streaming services on the television as Phil resumed his spot. “I really enjoyed that,” Phil whispered, lowering his lips to the side of Dan’s head.

“Thanks.” Dan forced a smile and brought a hand to the base of his pelvis to soothe.

Even as Louis asked for everyone’s opinions of what he should choose, Dan stayed quiet; turning inward to indulge every possibility that his worry presented him with. He waited minute after minute for the pain to dull, wondering if it would ever go away. If it was the result of over-eating. If he would have been better off not having that second slice of pudding. God, he hoped the cause was that simple.

“Here we go!” Louis said, hovering over the title of a film he had read an article about online. “This one.”

“Blind Night Light?” Phil asked.

Louis nodded.

“Isn’t that the film about the Holocaust that somehow became a Christmas classic?” Harry asked.

Yup! I watched it a long time ago at uni. It’s one of the best historical pieces in Polish cinema.” Louis clicked on the film to display more information about it. 89% of viewers enjoyed the film.

“I’m always down for a good cry,” Ashley said, giving Louis the confidence to start the movie.

Dan would’ve liked to concentrate on what was happening on the TV screen, but he was too caught up in his own thoughts. Fifteen minutes in, he couldn’t tell if the pain had remained on its own or if he had willed it to continue simply by thinking about it. Twenty minutes in, Dan felt Phil’s hand pull him close. He didn’t resist because he didn’t realize what was happening. It was only when he broke from his mental crisis that he saw that the other two couples were enjoying each other’s touch; Dominic falling in and out of sleep with his head in Ashley’s lap and Harry curled up on Louis chest as they shared a blanket.

Moments later, Phil had enveloped Dan in his arms. He slipped one of his hands under Dan’s jumper and began rubbing circles into Dan’s softness like he was a satellite dish sending signals out into deep space, hoping that an alien received his message. He knew that by making contact with Dan’s skin, he was compromising every barrier of protection that Dan had built around his expectations.

Dan knew that Phil and his honest hands meant no harm. In truth, Phil’s fingers on his skin and the second hand he added over Dan’s wool jumper once he knew that Dan wouldn’t protest, were an extraordinary remedy for the aches. For a solid ten minutes, Dan sat in Phil’s arms, denying his way through the spasms and trying to make sense of it all.

Phil’s touch eventually became inadequate. The pain was like a sore throat; spiced and tight. Only, it wasn’t just in his throat. It was in his entire body. Tension. A pull. A wringing. Every thread of nerves in his lower half was gathered and yanked up to his centre by hands that were never held.

The pain simmered like frying oil. It overflowed and spilled down his legs, splashing into the flames and igniting in his toes. His toes of all places! It was as if someone had taken a stitch ripper to every seam on his body, and he was unraveling in his seat. And the worst part of it all? Dan knew it well.

Phil’s arm was starting to lose circulation, pinned between Dan’s back and the sofa, so before his fingers went numb and tingly, he tried to wriggle himself free.

“Don’t stop,” Dan whispered while Phil was still behind him. His voice was drowned out under the volume of the film.

“Hmm?” Phil asked.

“Nothing.”

Dan grew hot; so hot that he felt cold. The sweat that had accumulated in every crease of his body had become excessive, especially between his legs. Ever since August, Dan suspected that any dampness he felt down there was blood, but considering that he was wrong nine out of ten times, he gave himself the benefit of the doubt. It was just sweat and maybe some discharge. He wouldn’t know unless he checked. If he checked, then he’d know.

Without Phil’s grasp to stabilize him, Dan shivered.

“Are you cold?” Phil asked, clutching Dan’s arm and rubbing him warm.

Dan shook his head as his spine caved. “I think—” Dan said, sputtering out a heap of tears.

Harry turned to Dan at the sound of his weeping.

“Honey, what’s wrong?” Phil asked.

“I think it’s happening again.”

“You—What?” Phil asked, reaching for Dan’s hand. “No!” he shouted, loud enough for Louis to reach for the remote to pause the film.

Dan’s face contorted in pain as he nodded. "This is what it felt like last time."

“Sunflower!” Harry bawled as he unwrapped himself from the blanket.

“What do you need?” Phil asked.

In the same way Dan had done the first time, he turned to stone, barely able to perform his basic functions. Only, this time, he bypassed the hysteria and settled effortlessly into catatonia.

Ashley stood from her seat, careful as she raised Dominic’s sleeping head off her legs. She ran over to the kitchen, searching the cupboards for a glass. Once she found what she was looking for, she filled it with water from the tap. Cup in hand, she ran back to the sofa, grabbing the kitchen roll off the table along the way. “Drink this,” she said, handing Dan the water as she squatted to his level.

Dan grabbed the glass, taking small sips to appease her.

Ashley tore a few sheets of paper towel off the roll and dried Dan's face. “How are you feeling?” she asked, taking the drink from him as he handed it back to her.

“Like shit."

Ashley nodded. "I bet," she said. "This is the _worst_ thing a human being can go through." There was a glimmer of experience in her voice that gave her statement its authority. The slight twitch of her neck and the inward curl of her hand, like a physical expression of a torturous memory.

All Dan had to do to confirm his suspicions was glance over at Dominic, who had turned over on the sofa in Ashley's absence. When he returned his stare to Ashley below him, she met him with a pensive nod, answering the questions she had watched him pose with his eyes. It all made sense then; why Dom had been so considerate of Dan's privacy. Why he had never once suggested that they talk about his miscarriage or either of his pregnancies online. How he knew that Dan would want autonomy over his story, especially in their workplace. Dominic and Ashley had been exactly where he and Phil were. 

"Talk to me," Phil said, wrapping his arms around Dan. "I can't help if I don't know what you need."

“I think I need to go to A&E," Dan said.

“You do?”

Dan nodded. “It’s much worse than it was last time. I can’t take it for much longer.”

“Okay,” Phil said as he stood. “Do you want me to call an ambulance?”

Dan shook his head. “We can just go.”

“Okay,” Phil repeated to himself as he ran about the apartment, collecting his things and a full change of clothes for Dan.

In Phil’s absence, Harry took his spot on the couch beside Dan, hugging him and rubbing his aching back as he sobbed into his shoulder. Ashley too joined Dan on the couch, this time grabbing a tissue for herself.

“Is the movie over?” Dominic asked, rolling over to find Louis sitting cross-legged on the couch across from him with a hand clamped over his mouth as he typed rapidly on his phone.

“Go back to sleep,” Ashley said.

The shine in the eyes of Ashley, Harry, and Dan told him everything he needed to know. “Dan?” he asked.

Dan shook his head. “Go back to sleep, Dom. There’s nothing you can do.”

“Okay,” Dominic said, his voice thin as he verged on tears. “I love you, buddy.”

“Thank you,” Dan said, “I love you, too.”

A minute later, Phil emerged from the bedroom with a canvas bag full of all the things he planned on bringing with them: the clean clothes, a phone charger, and some water. “Are you ready?” He asked Dan as he stood over him.

Dan nodded, looking up to Phil with a pink face. He raised his arms to ask for Phil’s help in standing.

“I ordered you an Uber headed for St. Mary’s Hospital,” Louis said, holding up his phone for them to see. The screen showed that the car was only two minutes away.

“We better get going then,” Phil said. “Whoever leaves last, please turn off the lights and lock the door. There’s a key under the doormat.”

“Don’t even worry about that,” Harry said. “We’ll clean this up for you guys. It’ll be alright.”

Dan cleared his nose again. “Thank you all. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Lou.”

Louis shook his head. “No. No. No. You’ve done nothing wrong.”

Dan’s face contorted as he wrapped his arm around Phil to lean on him. “I know.” He winced with his first few steps. As Phil led Dan to the front door, Dan leaned over to grab Dominic’s socked toes. “It’s okay kiddo. I’ll be fine.”

***

It hadn’t registered to Dan what was happening until he was in his pre-op suite with Phil by his side. The medication they had given him in A&E to diminish the anxiety he felt as the result of all the examinations was losing its edge as they waited for the surgical theatre to open.

It was hard enough to have a first trimester miscarriage at home with minimal medical intervention. It was something completely different to have a second trimester miscarriage where medical intervention was the safest option. Dan needed to have scans done because of his situation’s severity. A foetus as large as Dan’s would not pass easily if he was having a miscarriage that far along—which a doctor in A&E confirmed that he was.

The yelp that Dan let out when he saw the technician remove the blood-soaked ultrasound probe from his body was impotence enough for the attending physician to order Dan a standard dose of lorazepam.

“Bring this man a tranquilizer,” the doctor requested of a nurse.

Any other word would have been better. Sedation. Drugs. Benzos. But tranquilizer set him on edge even more. Made him feel like he was a particularly unruly patient in a psychiatric facility. The only reason he survived that night was because of Phil. All the way through their turbulent Uber ride to the hospital, Phil was there warding off the driver’s inappropriate questions.

“Saint Mary’s, huh? Which one of you’s hurt?”

“We’re actually just visiting a friend,” Phil lied, reaching for Dan’s hand.

The driver shook his head. “It’s half past nine! Visiting hours have long been over.” He used his rear-view mirror to get a look at the two of them in the back seat. “I bet it’s for you sat behind me,” the driver said pointing to Dan who had been shivering with his head pressed against the window. “You on drugs or sommat? I can’t have you vomiting or getting blood in the car. I’m not an ambulance.”

“Would you just shut the fuck up and drive?” Phil yelled, leaning into the front seat.

Likewise, Phil had been right by Dan’s side when the doctor held the transducer to his flesh in search for a heartbeat.

"120 bpm," the doctor said aloud.

Dan had never heard a reading under 130 beats per minute.

"100," the doctor corrected a few seconds later. "I need a bag of A positive blood in here ASAP!" he yelled, hoping that an available nurse would help him out. "Daniel, I've detected a hemorrhage. Baby's heart's slowing down as a result, but if we act soon-"

Neither Dan nor Phil understood what the doctor was saying. Their ears honed in on the slowing crunching noise coming from the monitor; the unsteady thump of a tree against a house during a storm. The numbers on the monitor kept falling. 80. 85. 70. And even though they weren't paying attention to what the doctor was saying, they both knew that he hadn't finished his sentence. He had been too astonished by the speed of the decay. 60. 50. 55.

"A positive?" a nurse asked, letting herself in through the curtain. She held a transfusion kit in a metal tin at her chest.

The doctor shook his head.

“Is it dead?” Dan asked.

The doctor merely nodded, looking down at Dan with a distant, ingenuine sympathy that told Dan the story of his inexperience. The kind of disappointment that stemmed from a personal failure rather than compassion. It was the same look Dan had seen in his father so many times before.

With Phil sitting in a chair up at Dan’s shoulders, Dan was sure that if any parts of him disintegrated at the news, Phil would be there to catch them. It hadn't yet dawned on either of them that they had just watched their child die. Still, Phil got so worked up that he felt the need to take his jumper off. Dan offered him his shoulder as he wept, not caring if the other patients around them heard. He cried so hard that he brought on a coughing fit.

The doctor left the couple alone, letting Dan ponder his three options: expectant management, medicine, or surgery. He had explained to Dan that the first two options were similar in that they would be extremely painful. Expectant management was what Dan had done the first time: stay home and bleed out. This late into his pregnancy, there was a chance of him not being able to pass all of the tissue inside of him. The medical route involved the use of drugs to open his cervix, letting most of the heavy bleeding happen over a shorter period of time. The third option was a quick surgery. The doctors would go in and clean out all of the pregnancy related tissue. And that was it. Less physical pain. Less bleeding. Dan didn’t have to think for very long to decide that surgery was the best route for him.

Even in the pre-op suite with about a million spaces for Phil to lay down and sleep after he had been awake for nearly twenty hours, he sat in an uncomfortable foldable chair beside Dan’s bed and kept him entertained as they waited.

“You’re heart rate’s gone down quite a bit,” Phil said as he watched the fluctuating numbers on Dan's monitor. He felt the need to watch, given what had happened just hours before.

“Has it?” Dan asked, staring at the clamp on his finger that measured his pulse and his blood oxygen.

“Yup. It went from like a hundred and thirty resting. Now it’s hovering just above eighty.”

“The wonders of Western medicine…” Dan said, settling his neck further into his pillow and closing his eyes.

“Are you tired?”

Dan shook his head. “Not one bit. The lights are just super bright in here, and my eyes are raw.”

“Ah. I see.” Phil leaned back in his seat, nestling his hands in his pockets and propping up one leg on the side of Dan’s bed. “You’re doing amazing.”

“Yeah,” Dan said. “Besides that panic attack I had during the scan, I think I’m handling this all pretty well.”

“Do you know why?”

Dan shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s like I’ve been disenchanted to parenthood, if that makes sense. Like, the first time around, I was scared, and then my worst fear happened, so it’s like, what could be worse? It happens again? I feel like I’m better prepared for it, you know?”

Phil nodded. “It’s not like that for me at all. These two pregnancies have been the greatest things that have happened to us, no matter how they ended.”

“Surprisingly,” Dan said, “I agree.”

“What led us to this point has made us so strong.”

“Marriages end because of shit like this,” Dan said, scratching the skin covered in tape around the IV needle in his hand. “But it’s only made us stronger.”

“It has.”

“Phil,” Dan called, letting the medication take away the fear he would have felt about acknowledging something he knew neither of them wanted to think about. “Do you want to say goodbye?”

“What do you mean?” Phil asked.

“I was afraid this might happen”—Dan gestured to the hospital room around them—”so I did some research about what it would be like. They don’t let you have the body after the procedure.”

Phil sputtered. “Wuh-Why would we—I mean, what wuh-would we do with—”

“I don’t know. What I do know is that our baby is right here, right now”—Dan held his belly—“but they won’t be for long. I’m giving you the opportunity to—”

“Yes! Yes,” Phil cried, lunging to his feet.

Dan smiled at Phil’s enthusiasm, no matter how melancholy their predicament was. As Phil warmed his hands, Dan brought his hospital gown up to his chest, letting Phil have carte blanche over his body. He let every feeling apart from love leave his mind as Phil pressed his forehead to his abdomen. He had never felt more connected to that baby in the fourteen weeks since he and Phil had made them. It was just a shame that it took their death for Dan to realize how much they meant to him. He was still in pursuit of the Goldilocks zone of prenatal attachment. The only way he could find it was by putting his heart on the line and trying with Phil yet again.

Phil’s lips left damp kisses over their child. His fingertips traced the names he would have given them across Dan’s skin. “You are my sunshine,” Phil sang to them, low and off-key, “my only sunshine.”

Dan thought he felt his own heart seize.

“You make me happy when skies are grey. You’ll never know dear, how much I love you.”

Dan finished the song with Phil in a whisper. “Please don’t take my sunshine away.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See you on the 28th...


	13. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Word Count: 3183  
> Reading Time: 11 minutes 34 seconds

28 December 2020

The serenity Phil finds in Dan’s face as he sits beside his bed puts Phil at ease. Dan is doing so well.

Everything that has led up to this day has prepared the both of them for what is to come.

***

After six months of pulling in consistent, weekly views online with numbers in the millions, Dominic had struck gold. The EEN flew him and Dan out to host the EEN United States Music Awards red-carpet in Los Angeles. Adam tagged along, paying for his own fare and sharing a room with Dominic. Dominic insisted, knowing that the clubs on Hollywood Boulevard would be teeming with record executives and other people-to-know.

The instant he and Dan had finished their pre-show hosting duties Dominic, Dan, and Adam booked it back to their hotel room to prepare for the show Dominic and Adam had booked down the street from the award show’s venue.

As Dominic stood on the stage that night, surrounded by the after party, he knew this performance was make or break. If he didn’t sing and play his heart out—if he didn’t do it as himself—he would never forgive himself. So with Dan in the audience, enjoying the sweatiest and most lively of shows since his festival days, Dominic rocked the crowd. He wailed out his songs, bouncing around the stage and stripping off layers of clothes when the action got him too hot. It was the happiest he had ever been.

Dan tried to hold back his chagrin a few days later when Dominic revealed to him that one of the suits in the audience had offered him and Adam a record deal. He couldn’t be prouder that Dominic was starting to live his dream, only, he wished it didn’t mean the end of the line. Even though the EEN let Dan keep the show for himself, it would never be the same without Dan’s highlighter-haired partner-in-crime.

The network gave Dan as long as he needed to regroup. The show was placed on an indefinite hiatus while Dan found himself again. On those days when Dan was stuck in his and Dominic’s office trying to work in the graveyard of their old set, he would often reflect on the first time he met Dom. The hopes he had expressed to Dominic that day in early August haunted him. In hindsight, he couldn’t believe how naïve he was to think that by the time he and Dominic parted ways he would be settled down with his complete family. Even the promise he had made about not depending on his job at the EEN as the outlet for his creative expression, he had backed out on.

With the events of 2019 hanging over him, Dan had clung to his job as one of the only sources of security in his life, aside from Phil. He wasn’t in the process of writing a book. He hadn’t been cultivating a personal YouTube channel—which he was within the bounds of his contract to do. None of that interested him. He was lost.

It wasn’t until he checked his and Phil’s bank statements that he found a starting point. In one of their accounts with the number he recognized as their holiday savings fund, he found £2,200. The number was just £300 short of the estimated total he and Phil had expected they would need for a trip to Japan.

_That’s nothing!_

It didn’t take much persuasion for Phil to agree when Dan went home that night and made the suggestion that they front the remaining amount over dinner. The next morning, Phil called a travel agent and booked their trip for the end of March. The timing was perfect, they figured; not too far out, but also close. Two weeks before Harry’s due date, so they hopefully wouldn’t miss the baby’s birth. It would be wonderful.

Day one of ten in Tokyo marked the beginning of one of the best weeks in Dan and Phil’s lives. The 12 hour flight had spent the two of them, so the minute they were settled into their hotel room, they crashed and wasted a whole day in bed. They even blew off their tour guide who was supposed to take them into the city for dinner. Luckily, when they did wake up, hungry enough to share a horse, they were able to find food inside their resort. The hotel had been accommodating to English-speakers with translated signs and menus.

The next day, the two went for a walk, early in the morning at a park across the street. By coincidence and sheer impulsivity, Phil had booked their holiday during the height of the cherry blossom bloom. They figured that was why their tickets were more expensive than they had previously anticipated and why the park was so crowded. Hundreds of tourists stood under the pink and white trees, letting the flowers fall all around them with the wind. As magnificent as the sight was, the pollen in the air was an attack on Dan’s sinuses, but he put up with it for as long as Phil wanted to view them. Allergies, however, weren’t the reason Dan shed tears under the cherry blossoms.

“What’s wrong?” Phil asked, noticing Dan cross his arms in upset.

Dan shook his head. “It’s nothing.” He couldn’t kill the mood. They were so happy to be doing this.

“It’s something.”

“Today would have been my due date,” Dan said.

Phil remembered that hours-long conversation he and Dan had on New Year’s Eve about their future. As intensely introspective as it was, it put them both at ease. Dan communicated to Phil that against Dr. Muller’s recommendation, he would not have himself and Phil tested for infertility. It was standard procedure for couples who had lost more than one consecutive pregnancy, as long as they wanted to safely keep trying. Dan wasn’t sure that was what he wanted any more. He knew he couldn’t mentally or physically handle a third loss in less than a year. His body was at a breaking point, and he and Phil decided that the best thing for the both of them was to put their desires to rest. Phil could have accepted if Dan told him that meant for forever. As badly as he wanted children of his own, Phil respected Dan too much to demand that they keep forever off the table.

Their visit to the Meiji Shrine was the early turning-point of their trip. The tour guide led them under the arched entrance, past the walls of barrels of sake and to the hand washing pool.

As the guide had instructed, they both cleaned their hands and the insides of their mouths with scoops of the water before they proceeded further into the outdoor temple. The guide led the couple over to the souvenir shop where they found ema planks that hung from twine. The guide informed them that the planks were used for wish-making, and that there was a place to hang them in the hopes that they would come true.

“You’re not getting one?” Phil asked as he and Dan queued up buy the wooden table.

“I don’t need one,” Dan said, confident that he knew what Phil was going to wish for. “We want the same thing.”

Phil’s smile grew as he leaned over to kiss Dan’s hair. He hoped that he hadn’t offended anyone who saw his public display of affection in such a sacred place, but he just couldn’t help himself

After the walk from the shop to the camphor tree where the ema of the other tourists were displayed, Dan and Phil stopped at the marker holder on the wall where dozens of sharpies sat, waiting to be used to transcribe wishes.

“Here you are,” Phil said, plucking a marker from the bunch and handing it to Dan with the wooden plank.

Dan accepted the items with a grin as he uncapped the marker and wrote down a single name. After returning the marker, he and Phil approached the wall of wishes, stopping to read a few.

___“___ ___I wish for world peace.”__ _

_“Promotion time!”_

_“I wish for more trees to be planted.”_

Dan hung his and Phil’s wish from a hook in the centre of the wall, visible for everyone to read.

Seeing it among all the other wishes reignited the flame inside Dan that he thought was long lost. Anything seemed possible again. He felt resilient.

Before they left the shrine, Dan kissed his hand and pressed it to their ema that read, “Baby Lester.”

What happened in the temple set the tone for their entire trip. An unspoken covenant had formed between Dan and Phil; something simultaneously fully-formed yet paper thin. It carried the same delightful energy as the playful flirtations they had exchanged before making their relationship official as fresh adults. It was there in every shop they visited. In the hot spring and the kabuki show they went to. In every sushi restaurant. It even followed them to Tokyo Disneyland. It was at its highest voltage every night as Dan and Phil laid together in bed. Phil acknowledged the notion every time he held up the condom for Dan to see before they had sex, as if to ask, “Should I use it?”

Dan never encouraged nor discouraged Phil’s actions until the night before they flew home. He finally put his foot down, knowing that if he did nothing, all of that tension they had enjoyed would have been for nothing.

“How about we skip the condom?” Dan asked.

“You’re ready?” Phil smiled.

Dan shrugged. “I’m ready to be ready.”

Phil chuckled. “What does that mean?”

“It means let’s try this one time, and if it happens, it happens. How does that sound?”

“Sounds like a plan.”

The next day, as Dan and Phil stood in queue to board their flight home, Dan received a call from Harry at noon Japan time, 3:00 am London time. Even though he had been surrounded by strangers, he knew better than to ignore the ring of his phone. When you have a friend who is 38 weeks pregnant, and they call you instead of texting, you answer the phone.

“Dan…” Harry whined.

Dan couldn’t tell if Harry was suppressing a cry or a wry laugh. “Harry… What’s up?”

“I’ve been having contractions all night, but it’s getting to that point.”

Dan gasped. “I’m so sorry we can’t be there. How are you feeling?”

“I’m hurting,” Harry chuckled. “Right now, I’m hunched over a rail outside the flat, trying to catch my breath. I’m excited, though. Can’t wait to meet—Aw, fuck!” Harry winced. “Louis!” he screamed.

Despite the pain at the forefront, there were still high hopes and even a great deal of love in his voice. Harry was ready, and Dan was there with him in spirit.

Four days later, when Dan and Phil had returned to London and Harry and Louis were finally settled in with their baby, Dan and Phil came over to meet her.

Harry delivered a baby girl on 5 April 2020, at 1:32 in the afternoon. She was called Olivia Tomlinson, and she was perfect with the brassy-brown velvet on her head and her enormous blue eyes. Harry could not have crafted her better.

As Dan stood over the baby’s bassinet, he took in her newborn scent. It was just as sweet as Dan had imagined it to be. He used the idea of the smell to lull himself to sleep on those late, December nights when the cries of phantom children kept him up.

Dan let that melancholy inspire his outline for the first episode back from The Dan and Dom Show’s hiatus. For weeks, all Dan did was write. He had to nail everything he did; not only all of the stories he had to write in advance, but also his comeback.

It had to set the tone for the future of the podcast in a way that wasn’t so morbid and grim. He couldn’t lose even more listeners after all of Dominic’s fans left with him. He had to find ways to inject his story with genuine moments of hope, no matter how simple or erratic they portrayed him to be. A month later, he had the scripts for the next twelve episodes of storytelling for his show, and it felt great. Among those twelve scripts was the nine thousand-word-long document that Dan anticipated would eat into the interview portion of its episode.

Dan planned to use his longer story to warm the audience up to himself, alone. Dominic’s energy was notoriously infectious, and as a result, Dan found himself hamming his personality up to match. His stage persona on the podcast, was different from his stage persona on radio, and fans took notice.

Now that he was on his own, he asked himself why he needed a persona at all. When he came to the conclusion that he didn’t need one, the good material came.

He wrote about everything that he could remember. The good times with Harry, Louis, and Phil. The lows of his childhood with his emotionally distant father and his internalized homophobia. He let it come in its rawest form, and his superiors loved it.

A week before the end of the month, Dan’s first episode back entitled, “I Lost Two Pregnancies,” went live. The hour-long episode reached six million views across all of its available platforms in under 24 hours. It received near universal praise from listeners and international news publications.

For most of the recording, Dan remembered how focused he had to be just to get the words out. It took all of his concentration to read from his prompter behind the camera. To tell his story in the way he felt was responsible. This episode was not only the telling of an infertility story; it was Dan’s coming out. He had never once acknowledged the fact that he was caramel publicly until then, because it wasn’t something he could have mentioned in passing without creating a frenzy of sensationalism. There was so much still to learn about carrying males, and Dan knew he had to teach the world.

After Dan’s video went viral, a chain reaction of coming out videos was started by content creators big and small. The experience opened up a slew of opportunities for Dan. Non-profits requested for him to be the face of their sex education and mental health campaigns. Dan accepted as many gigs as he could, turning down the more strenuous jobs for health reasons.

By the end of the year, Dan and Phil’s lives had changed yet again—except this time, for the better.

***

“You’re doing so well,” Phil says.

Just then, Dan takes in another huff of gas and air. He giggles to himself with the mask over his nose and mouth. He inhales so much that for a split second, he loses his train of thought in his high. “It’s still early on,” he says once the nitrous oxide takes effect. He places the mask back over his face and takes in a few more breaths.

“I know you said you wanted to hold off for real medication until the pain gets worse, but in the meantime be careful. The doctors said to stop the gas and air when you feel tingly.”

Dan sticks his dry tongue out at Phil. “Goody two-shoes.”

“I’m like this because I care!” Phil defends as the suite door opens behind Phil.

“I care too!” Harry says as he steps into the room with the bag Dan and Phil had forgotten on their way out.

“Harry!” Dan cheers. “Thank you so much.” He reaches for the bag, finding the pads, changes of clothing, and travel size-toiletries he had packed weeks before.

Phil stands to offer Harry his seat. “They told us no visitors. I thought I was going to have to meet you out in the parking lot.”

“Yeah, how did you get in here?” Dan asks.

Harry sits in the chair Phil had kept warm for him, resting a hand over the 20-week old he was growing. “I told them I was your doula,” Harry admits with a cheeky smile.

Even though it’s been nearly a month since Harry has cut off nearly 30 centemetres of his hair, Dan still hasn’t gotten used to the sight of Harry’s head. The cut had to be done with how much hair Harry had lost while nursing, and his new, short curls helps return his volume.

“My what?” Dan finally manages to ask.

“Your emotional support person.”

“Well, you are. You and Phil.”

“I’m good to stay the entire duration of this,” Harry says, “Lou’s at home with Olivia. I’d imagine that my labour and delivery would have gone smoother if you were there. So, I’m here to take some pressure off Phil.”

Dan shakes his head. “When did we get so lucky?” he asks Phil.

Phil shrugs as he comes closer to Dan’s bed, leaning over him to lay a gentle hand over the mound trapped inside his skin. Dan’s flesh is soft between contractions, and Phil’s touch is light enough to give him the chills.

“So this is what three days over-due looks like?” Harry asks, pointing to Dan’s enormous, bare stomach, sporting a fetal heart monitor like a ribbon tied around a box. Dan feels like the last present forgotten under the Christmas tree.

“Yup.” Dan smiles and rubs his belly. He and Phil found poetic justice in his original Christmas due date; exactly a year after their second loss. Ever since they told Harry and Louis that they were expecting, well into Dan’s second trimester, the joke had been that the kid would come out a day early to steal Louis’ spotlight. But Baby Lester had other plans, proving that no matter how long after the storm, there will always be a rainbow. “He’ll be out in no time.” As Dan says the words, it finally dawns on him that he is going to be a dad. He doesn’t know his son’s name or his face, but he already knows that he and Phil love him more than anything in the whole world.

“Bet you 50 quid he’s a ginger,” Harry says.

Phil breaks out into a fit of laughter as Dan puckers his face.

“You know what, doula? I’m feeling very emotionally disturbed right about now. How dare you come into my room and say the forbidden word.”

“Hey!” Phil says. “Watch out. He’s not crazy to think it. Not with my natural hair colour and Martyn and Cornelia’s—”

“Yes! Yes! Their baby is lovely, very lovely, but we are not them. There is still a chance!”

Phil rolls his eyes. “Do you see what I’ve had to put up with for the last nine months?” he asks Harry.

March to December. Just thinking about the stretch of time calms Dan down again. December and beyond. For once in his life, the concept of forever doesn’t scare him. He’s found his purpose.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the end. Thank you so much for reading! Sharing this story has been the highlight of my holiday season. The last chapter is a list of all the songs that have inspired my writing. Hopefully you can enjoy it :)


	14. Music Playlist

14 YouTube Playlist

[It'll Be Alright Playlist ](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpZKz0EKREq6nGEmApOjI8k-V71pv3XfX)

1.) Somebody- Depeche Mode  
2.) Career Boy- Dorian Electra  
3.) Ever Since New York- Harry Styles  
4.) Dreaming Of You- Selena  
5.) Levitating- Dua Lipa  
6.) Lights Up- Harry Styles  
7.) Expecting- The White Stripes  
8.) The Bends- Radiohead  
9.) 21st Century Liability- YUNGBLUD  
10.) Watermelon Sugar- Harry Styles  
11.) Sweet Creature- Harry Styles  
12.) Hey Jealousy- Gin Blossoms  
13.) Kiwi- Harry Styles  
14.) Blood- My Chemical Romance  
15.) Such Small Hands- La Dispute  
16.) My Child- Disturbed  
17.) All Apologies- Nirvana  
18.) Sign of the Times- Harry Styles  
19.) Shame- Smashing Pumpkins  
20.) Cold Dark Place- Mastodon  
21.) All I Really Want- Alanis Morissette  
22.) Need You Here- I DONT KNOW HOW BUT THEY FOUND ME  
23.) Because of You- Ne-Yo  
24.) Casual sabotage- YUNGBLUD  
25.) Hard Times- Paramore  
26.) Better Than Me- The Brobecks  
27.) Never Enough- The Cure  
28.) Rock Me- One Direction  
29.) Cotton Candy- YUNGBLUD  
30.) PILLOWTALK- Zayn  
31.) Protect Me From What I Want- PLACEBO  
32.) Happy- P!nk  
33.) You’ll Be Fine- Palaye Royale  
34.) Go All The Way- Raspberries  
35.) What a Feeling- One Direction  
36.) Wonderful Christmastime- Paul McCartney  
37.) All I Want For Christmas Is You- My Chemical Romance  
38.) All the Angels- My Chemical Romance  
39.) River-Ben Platt  
40.) Isn’t She lovely- Stevie Wonder  
41.) SLOW DANCING IN THE DARK- Joji  
42.) you are my sunshine- Christina Perri


End file.
